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THE AFRICAN, 

A TALE, 

AND OTHER POEMS, 

BY DUGALD MOORE. 

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" The pieces which make up the volume, are of a very varied kind, but none of 
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** The predominant characteristic of his mjnd is intensity. There is no rapid 
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beautiful and impressive. The whole of his writings evince an energetic mind ; 
and where energy is, there can be no doubt of ultimate success."— Edinburgh 
Evening Post. 

'* The leading characteristic of Mr Moore's style is its strength."— Edinburgh 
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THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT; 



THE FIRST POET; 



AND OTHER POEMS. 



/ 



BY DUGALD MOORE, 



AUTHOR OF "THE AFRICAN,*' "SCENES FROM THE FLOOD." &C. 




GLASGOW : 
BLACKIE, FULLARTON, & CO.; 

A. FULLARTON & CO., EDINBURGH; W. CURRY, JUN. & CO., DUBLIN; 
AND SIMPKIN & MARSHALL, LONDON. 



MDCCCXXXI. 



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HUTCHISON & BROOKMANj PRINTERS, VILLAFIELD. 



CONTENTS. 



The Bridal Night. Page 

Canto I. 3 

Canto II 25 

Canto III ... 45 

The First Poet, 73 

To the Wind, . . 107 

The Pilgrim, U* 

My First Vow, ] ** 

A Midnight in Glencoe, H7 

The Persecuted, 122 

To the Clouds, 128 

The Wife of Asdrubal, 132 

The Sailor's Funeral, 136 

Lamech, the Regicide, 139 

The Dead Boa, 153 

The Aurora Borealis, 155 

The Indian's Grave, 159 

The First Ship, 163 

To the Comet, 165 

The Baptism, 169 

The First Sound from Earth, . . . . . .172 

To Earthquake, 17l< 

A Ship run down at Sea, .178 

Lethe, . 181 

The Invitation, 186 

The Flower, 190 

The Moonbeam, . . .191 

Song, 193 

Song, \ . . 194 

To the Sky, 195 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Leonidas at Thermopylae, 199 

The Skeleton of the Wreck, 204 

213 

21G 
218 
220 
221 
225 
227 
228 
231 
235 
238 
240 
242 
247 



To Thunder, 

On a Highland Burial Ground, 

Stanzas, .... 

The Covenanters, 

Eclipse, 

The Flight of Nero, 

Lines, 

The Guardian Spirit, 

The Death of Alp Arslan, 

To the Moon, . 

To a Ship's Pennon, 

To a Petrified Tree, 

The last of his Tribe, . 

Sonnet I. The Cathedral of Glasgow, 

II. On hearing the sound of Miss H — 's Lute in 

the Night, 

III. Summer Morning, ..... 

IV. The Mountain Cairn, . . 

V. On the first view of the Highlands from Stockie 

Moor, . 

VI. To Ben- Arthur or the Cobbler, 

VII. Spring, 

VIII. Written at Eterick Bay, .... 

IX. On the Black Mount, 

X. Summer Evening Shower, .... 



248 
249 
250 

251 
252 
253 
254 
255 
256 



TO 

MY MOTHER, 

IN SINCERE REMEMBRANCE 
OF HUMBLE AND UNKNOWN WORTH 
AND VIRTUOUS FORTITUDE, 
DISPLAYED THROUGH A LIFE OF SEVERE HARDSHIP, 
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 
BY HER AFFECTIONATE SON, 

THE AUTHOR. 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 



CANTO FIRST. 



I. 

Day sets in glory o'er the Ionian sea, 
Night gathers round him like eternity ; 
And all is hush'd, as if the rosy mouth 
Of love breathed o'er his own delicious south. 
'Tis one of those sweet eves, so calm, so clear, 
And living, that you almost think you hear, 
In the warm air, the very wild-flowers grow, 
And the young blood through their green channels flow. 
Joy seems to breathe his songs in every bower, 
As if Death's foot had never crush'd a flower ; 
While music floats along the twilight deep, 
As nature saw bright visions in her sleep, 

b 2 



4 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I 

And, like an infant through a glorious dream, 
Murmur d delight from every hill and stream ! 
The winds lie wearied with their morning chase, 
Embraced by silence in the halls of space ; 
And as the gorgeous clouds to darkness pass, 
You see the stars, in many a fairy mass, 
Laughing along the desert of the air, 
Apart, or group'd, like happy lovers there ; 
While the warm breeze that slowly warbles by, 
Wanders away, like pleasure, with a sigh. 

II. 

A bark is on the ocean — faint and far 
Its white sail glitters 'neath the evening star, 
That, climbing the blue east, like Luna's daughter, 
Lifts her calm eyelids on the dreaming water. 
Before that prow the sleeping billows fly — 
And, hark ! the echo of its chieftain's cry : 
" Hold to your oars ! though night be gathering dark, 
Yet she has eyes, and we a gallant bark : 
The one will guide us like the looks of love ; 
The other bear away our captive dove, 
Who long has gazed across the deep, that she 
Might view this love-ark drifting o'er the sea. 



Canto I. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 

Then strain the oar ! our virgin will not sleep, 
When love and liberty are on the deep. 
We lack not valour, but we lack the power 
To wrest her from him in the open hour : 
For, oh ! more glorious to my soul would be, 
Beneath the sun, our fight and victory, 
Than grappling with the despot in the dark — 
But he has hosts, and many an armed bark ■ 
A thousand turbans bow before his call, 
A thousand sabres glitter in his hall. 
But we shall rouse him at the midnight hour, 
With havoc's warcry ringing through his tower : 
None shall escape, none but my beauteous bride, 
And we will bear her to the laughing tide, 
Where, like the ocean birds, well drift alone, 
O'er a blue world of waters all our own!" 

III. 

A wild hurra from his sea-beaten crew 
Told him their stormy hearts were his and true : 
They gave him what he wish'd — a wild reply 
Spoke by the sparkle of each savage eye. 
The white sheet, fluttering in the sportive blast, 
Is furl'd by warrior arms around the mast ; 



6 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I. 

The ship more slowly cuts the glassy tide, 

Whose snowy ridges kiss her oozy side ; 

The sky above them wears a deeper hue, 

The sea around assumes a colder blue ; 

Light's latest day-beam lingers in the west, 

Like life's last warmth within the quivering breast ; 

The white birds, sporting o'er the feathery spray, 

Begin to wing their passage to the bay ; 

Eve droops in beauty, like the first calm night 

That fell upon creation, ere the flight 

Of death and time, towards our infant sphere, 

Broke like a tempest on her dreaming ear. 

IV. 

But who is he whose scarf and eagle crest 
Float on the sea-breeze high above the rest ? 
A Hero of the isles — a child of Greece, 
A spirit form'd not for an age of peace ! 
'Twas not for him, when liberty was gone, 
To kiss the hand that braced his fetters on. 
No ! oft he let his roving foemen see 
How dearly home was valued by the free. 
Born with the tyrant's fetters in his view, 
He drank revenge with life ; and, as he grew, 



Canto I. THE BRIDAL XIGHT. 

His soul expanded in her dreams of hate 

To them who made his country desolate. 

Though born to power, the tyrant's arm had reft 

Each link away, till he alone was left 

With nothing but the desert for his hall, 

Vengeance his birthright, and the sword his all. 

Though hunted like the tiger in his lair, 

He never felt the sickness of despair ; 

Contempt of life, and danger, ever near, 

Chased from his lion-spirit every fear. 

He sought no home — no shelter but the sea ; 

No wealth — but souls as fearless and as free 

As the wide waste of waves that welcomed them 

To earn — if not a saint's, a hero's fame. 

His was a soul unsullied by the chain, 

An arm too strong to strike, and strike in vain ! 

His gloomy spirit in that mould was cast 

Which lov'd to hold communion with the past. 

Oft in the dear delusion of his brain, 

He fought his country's battles o'er again. 

The very sky that girdled his fair land 

Made his young bosom into love expand ; 

A tone of music, piped, however rude, 

By the bold shepherds of the solitude, 



8 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I. 

Could whirl his spirit in its tide along : — 

Oft has he sat like genius of the song, 

And dreanVd of early Greece, the long, long day, 

Till, in her woe, his clouded soul grew gay 

Beneath those visions which, on memory's track, 

Brought the far glories of his country back, 

Shining in mournful beauty through the gloom 

Of faded years, like stars above a tomb ; 

And, though a mockery, as they pass'd him by, 

They raised a deathless spirit in his eye, 

Which said, he lack'd the time, but not the soul, 

To add a name to freedom's brightest roll. 

And when the moon, like spirit in her flight, 

Stole through the opening portals of the night, 

While the calm sky look'd dreaming round each star, 

And the wild breeze came singing from afar ; 

Like freedom's genius, he has sat alone 

On the grey cliffs that look on Marathon, 

Until his spirit, dizzy with the past, 

Forgot the chains, around his country cast, 

And rising proudly in the solitude, 

Felt, though the world was fetter'd, unsubdued ; 

Clenching, in stern delight, his bony hand, 

As if he whirl'd in fight his father's brand ; 



Canto I. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. & 

His long hair streaming on the gale— his eye 

Fix'd on the vast interminable sky, 

While o'er the desert rose his burning prayer, 

And his parch'd lips drank in the mountain air ! 

These were the glorious moments when he felt 

He was a son of Greece, and had not knelt 

To her invaders — and he smiled to think, 

While standing on the precipice's brink, 

And gazing on the beautiful blue sea, 

That Greece still lived, while one wild heart was free — 

One burning heart, that trembled not to spill 

Its last red tear for her deliverance still ! 

V. 

No shrine was his by wealth and flattery won, 
He knelt and worshipp'd as his sires had done ; 
His God was traced along the earth and sky, 
Whose voice was heard when roll'd the thunder by ; 
His altar was the lone and mighty Alp, 
With zone of clouds, and grey and icy scalp, 
Round which the lightnings on their jagged way, 
Loved in their solitary strength to play. 
When storms departed, and the laughing flowers 
Were waked from darkness by the blue-eyed hours, 

b 3 



10 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I. 

With his stern comrades he would seek the wild, 
And worship God like nature's untaught child ; 
His church the glorious sky with all its stars, 
The frozen mountains, with their thousand spars 
Of glittering ice, the polish'd shafts that stood 
Propping the dome of the fair solitude, 
Whose music was the tempest in its flight, 
Or the blue ocean, in the deep midnight, 
Raising his watery harpstrings to the blast, 
That brush'd the cords in grandeur as it pass'd. 
He sway'd his roving multitudes at will, 
As tempests turn the pine-trees on the hill. 
Like him, his tribe were outcasts from their land, 
Who felt, and gave no mercy, but the brand ! 
From all their ties, and young affections riven, 
They had no love, but vengeance, under heaven. 
No wealth was theirs, — but what the falchion's spell 
Won from their lords — and they did wield it well : 
To them the strife was nothing — 'twas a game 
Which, lost or gaind, had still its sweets for them ;— 
If gain'd, the spoil repaid the toils of fight — 
If lost, revenge could make even slavery light : 
The triumph or the rout could give no sting, 
And death would only spread the spirit's wing 



Canto L THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 

For happier shores, where they would never trace 
The hated steps of Othman's serpent race. 

VI. 

What means young Zariff now upon the main 
With sheathless brand, — and all his savage train ? 
Ah ! need the tale be told ? — that dream of bliss, 
Which fires the gentlest heart, had kindled his. 
Love rear'd for him his sweetest passion flower, 
And he did pluck it in a cloudless hour. 
She was a beauteous bud, whose magic wile 
Could bind the soul in fetters with a smile ; — 
She was a sunbeam in his morn of life — 
But hope forsook him in his day of strife ; 
And he had seen his dear delusions fall — 
His love a captive in the despot's hall ! 

VII. 

Yet Isidora fondly thinks on thee, 
Thou fearless rover of the mighty sea ! 
Think'st thou she can forget her last — her first, 
Fond flame of love, which she for thee has nurs'd ? 
As soon the mother may forget the child, 
That, cherub-like, upon her bosom smil'd, 



11 



1^ THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I. 

Than she from memory's tablet will erase 
The fairy dreams, the hopes of other days ! 
Think'st thou she can forget thee ? memory's spell 
Will conjure back affection's last farewell; 
She'll feel again each passion and each pain, 
That whirling fever of the heart and brain, 
Whose balm lies hid in solitude — that thrill, 
Whose sway forbids the bosom to be still ; 
And she will pine — and weep — when none can see 
The burning tear-drops that are shed for thee. 
Ay, she will cherish — when all others fade — 
A passion which despair itself will aid. 

VIII. 

The day's last glory tinged the galley's shrouds, 
And far away, among the dreaming clouds, 
The sparkling stars were gathering one by one, 
Like seraphs gazing on the dying sun : 
The earth was melting mid the waves of night, 
And the cold moon was trembling into light ; 
As Zariff reach'd those towers, where mercy slept, 
And where his Bird of Beauty pined and wept. 
Ranged with his swarthy heroes in the bay, 
The chief impatient chides the twilight grey, 



Canto I. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 13 

That lingers long upon the deep afar — 
Oh, that a storm would veil each rising star ! 
Oh, for the yell of death — the shout of war ! 
And for that happy hour — when he shall feel 
The despot's panting bosom 'neath his steel ! 

IX. 

High on a savage crag, whose yawning gorge, 
Like stony network, caught the flashing surge 
Of the wild sea, a temple stood sublime 
In the dark twilight of descending time ; 
The rank weeds, twining on its arches grey, 
Wove the blue air to midnight in their play : 
It stood alone, as if to show the trace 
Of freedom's footsteps in that desert place : 
The ivy veil'd each marble battlement, 
The grey-wolf look'd, like murder, from each rent ; 
The bats their misty dance in silence kept, 
Like time's old shadow the dim owlet slept ; 
The wandering night fox made its groves her lair, 
The crawling adder hiss'd in darkness there ; 
Tenants, though alter'd, yet the tenants still, 
For Time can people deserts at his will ; 
'Tis but a change — for man and beauty's face, 
Another sect — yet still a breathing race, 



14" THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto 

Fair in its night of years the temple shone, 

A shadow on creation's dial stone, 

That mov'd not with the wandering hours, but stood 

The same through man and earth's vicissitude, 

Lonely and vast ; — the streamers of the night 

Fell on the marble in a shower of light, 

And one might see the pale stars shining through 

The dusky rents, like spirits in the blue 

Of heaven's unruffled deep, while, 'mid the dark, 

Lone as the raven wandering from the ark, 

Some solitary vulture wildly loud 

Hung shrieking o'er the ruins from her cloud. 

Dome of the perish'd ! — thou dost sternly say, 

That, like our fathers, we must pass away ; 

Ten thousand sun-sets have gone down o'er thee, 

And nights unknown, with their eternity, 

Have gather'd round thy beauty — they're away, 

The only mighty change is thou art grey. 

The fresh undying stars have climb'd, and shone, 

And still will shine above thy brow of stone ; 

Thou and the world, though storms have o'er thee roll'd, 

Art still the same, although a little old ; 

While nations drop around thee one by one, 

And men by millions, when their travel 's done, 

Like wandering clouds that vanish 'neath the sun. 



Canto I. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 1 

X. 

" Now moor the galley to this altar's side ! 
Un sheath your blades," — the chieftain softly cried, 
" We'll use them well ere ended is the fight, 
And stain them deeply ere to-morrow's light. 
Oh ! we will pay them back each ancient wrong, 
Revenge shall make the weakest spirit strong. 
Ay, many a turban shall be chang'd from white — 
The emir thinks not of our game to-night ; 
But we will wake him from his love-lit dreams — 
Torches can fire — and women have their screams ! 
His gilded domes, that glitter from afar, 
May mock ere long the radiance of each star ; 
The sternest slave shall sink beneath the sword, 
And guards are not for ever round their lord. 
Oh ! we will deal his treasures gallantly, 
When on the bosom of the freshening sea ! 
Bear up the arm, till every spear be gilt, 
And every falchion, to the very hilt. 
His be the greatest prize, when all is o'er, 
Who shows his sabre deepest dyed in gore. 
My rosy bride shall close each glorious scar, 
And lull us into sleep with her guitar !" 



16 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 



• XL 

He ceased — each rover of the ocean stood, 
And shook on high his naked arm of blood, 
Growl'd forth a low wild murmuring sound of death, 
Like lion when the foe is on his path. 
'Twas but a struggle — and their arms would gain 
Wealth fit to heal each sorrow and each pain ; 
Their hearts were dauntless, and their swords were keen, 
'Tis not the first time they have crimson'd been. 
Oh ! for one hour to tame the emir's pride, 
Then for a life of pleasure on the tide ; 
Bach dreaming out a long calm day of rest 
On the soft beauties of his captive's breast ! 

XII. 
But lo ! what means that light, at this calm hour, 
Within the lattice of the emir's tower, 
That streams in rainbow tints along the brow 
Of the dark sky, so bright, so wildly now ? 
All are not sleeping — Zariff, thou must brave 
The swords of many, ere thine arm can save 
Thy lovely mourner — she may wait for thee, 
But ah ! thy eagle smile may never see. 



Canto I. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. ^ 

And when she bends around her weeping" eye, 
She'll only mark her foemen frowning nigh : 
Young hope may lead her gaze across the deep, 
And banish from her heart the wing of sleep ; 
But vainly now her long white turban flies, 
Like love's fair banner through the darken'd skies ; 
In vain she waves it with her arm of snow — 
Thou canst not see the signal from below, ' 
Else vain were all the despot's boasted power 
To keep thee from her in so bless'd an hour. 
She long has linger d for thee — but in vain 
Her dim eye wander'd o'er the restless main ; 
She knows thy valour, and expecting waits, 
But there are brands to meet thee at the gates — 
Ay, desperate hearts, and swords to flash as bright 
Round Alla's banners, as by thine to-night. 

XIII. 

" Curse on his tardy gait, and coward soul !" 
The chief exclaim'd — " let's onward to the goal ! 
Perchance he has betray'd us, yet 'tis strange 
He should forego his wrongs and his revenge. 
Ha, no ! — he comes — our comrade still is brave ; 
Thou'rt welcome, brother !" cried the chief, and gave 



*8 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I. 

His dark hand to the stranger — " thou shalt be, 

Ere many hours, upon thy native sea ; 

To pay thy wrongs our blades will not be slack, 

If freedom's arm can e'er repay them back. 

But wherefore sad, my Selim ? — Are we known ? 

Well ! we have swords ! — we will not die alone. 

No ! trust me, man, the Ottoman shall feel 

The wild embrace of Greeks'— and freedom's steel !" 

Selim replied — " No, Zariff, we will stand, 

And grapple danger nobly hand to hand. 

Yet all our plans are marr'd ; the emir's pride, 

Fired by the beauty of thy youthful bride, 

Commands the marriage shrine to kindle bright ; 

The guests are come — this is his wedding night ! 

A thousand torches light the gaudy room, 

The wood of India yields its sweet perfume ; 

The slaves are smiling, and the nymphs are gay — 

All but thy love, whose mind seems far away ; 

In vain the music speaks, the banners wave, 

She looks like spirit of the lonesome grave ; 

She walks amid the dusky groups, though bright, 

Yet like the moon amid a storm at night, 

Smiling in mournful beauty, till some cloud 

Swathes her fair bosom in its rayless shroud." 



Canto I. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 19 

XIV. 

Oh ! had you seen the lover, as he drank 
Those words like poison in, — the spirit sank 
A moment in his wild eye — as he stood, 
As stands a sleeping tempest on the flood, 
Cloudy, and deep, and dark, but full of wrath, 
Which mutters woe unto the world beneath. 
He gazed upon the sky which, high above, 
Hung o'er him with its thousand eyes of love ; 
Then look'd he on the emir's towers again, 
As views the lion the abodes of men, 
Shaking his dreadful mane, with savage eye, 
Before he springs to triumph or to die. 
The chance was cast — he now had cross'd the main, 
True swords were round him and his native train ; 
And many a wave between him and his home 
Heaved to the sky its breast of snowy foam ; 
His all was centred in this little hour, 
He falls or wins the emir's boasted tower ! 
He saw the torches flashing through the night, 
He heard the revel in the castle's height ; 
He clench'd his teeth, and, with a desperate hand, 
Whirl'd with a fiendish laugh his naked brand 



20 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I. 

" Oh, let him spread the board, and fill the cup — 
More than his wedding guests to-night shall sup ! 
Ay, he shall wed her — oh 'tis well," he cried, 
" I'll be the Bride's-man by the emir's side, 
And gloomy Death shall be the dervise now, 
To twine the bridal garland round his brow ! 
Yes, he, forsooth, must have a carnival, 
But Death shall lead the dancers through the hall, 
Havoc shall yell his groans, and curses drear, 
Instead of harpstrings to the ravish'd ear. 
We still have hopes that are not wholly reft — 
And see, my Selim, — see our swords are left ! 
We'll boldly meet the tyrant and his band — 
Oh ! for our last fond welcome hand to hand ! 
Oh ! for the moment when our blades are met. 
On, on and face them — hope at last may set, 
But her bright star that led us o'er the flood, 
Will only vanish in a storm of blood ! 
On for the hour of havoc !" " Stay, oh, stay !" 
Selim exclaim'd — " such valour will betray 
Her bravest heroes, by a deed that's wrought 
In the first whirlwind of the maddening thought. 
Say, whither would you lead your scanty power — 
In what weak point attack the emir's tower ? 



Canto I. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 21 

For every sword you bring against his wall, 
A thousand soon will glitter at his call ; 
Tyrants, though hated, still find slaves to draw 
Their heartless brands to shield despotic law. 
Thy sea-born warriors now may dimly eye 
The snow-white turbans 'neath the star-lit sky, 
And glittering blades, which pass along the brow 
Of yon rude battlements by thousands now. 
But, list! — I have a plan to suit the night: 
The moon goes down ere ended is the rite : — 
The grave bird shrieks — list ! — over the far flood; 

Does that not prophesy a tale of blood ? 

Ay, — ay, — it shall be done — but to my plot : 

'Mid wine and love the emir has forgot 

To mount a guard so strong, whose swords may keep 

His sprightly rival from a certain steep 

Where stands his bridal chamber ; thou shalt see 

Anon the spot of love and liberty. 

In truth, his bands are more equipp'd to-night 

To grace his carnival than join in fight. 

Ere long the priest will lead the merry pair 

Before the shrine — but thou too shalt be there. 

I've gain'd the holy man — he hates the creed 

Of the red Infidel, and wills the deed. 



%% THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I. 

Come, bring thy tribe around the castle wall, 

There let them lurk, — until they hear our call ; 

Then let them fire the faggots and ascend, 

Each shall but find the welcome of a friend. 

Thyself must deck thee in our Turkish dress : 

Come, come, 'twill make thy manhood nothing less : 

And I will lead thee to the altar's side — 

Thou know'st the rest — death, vengeance, and thy bride !" 

XV. 

The guide is silent : with a deadly smile, 
The chief grinn'd out a horrid laugh the while, 
As with his sword and eye, that echo'd on — 
He sternly pointed where the castle shone ; 
Then ranged his band for conquest or for death. 
Now nought is heard — no murmur — but their breath, 
Which, like the first low muttering of the storm, 
Porclaims the havoc it may soon perform. 
They gasp one prayer — and then with dreadful look 
The last mute welcome of each other took, 
Silent and savage, like the vulture flock 
Descending from their eyries in the rock, 
Leagued in one mass, upon the battle plain, 
Where writhe the wounded, and where rot the slain, 



Canto I. 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 23 



'Neath winds that shed contagion with their breath, 
And suns that blister the cold brow of death. 

XVI. 

Oh ! who can tell the feelings dark and strong, 
Which nerve those bosoms which have suffer 'd wrong ? 
That burning throb — the passion of revenge, 
Which, though it slumbers long, can never change ; 
Those wild, those withering thoughts, that darkly roll, 
Like lava tide athwart the raving soul ? 
Oh ! had you seen these warriors in the shade, 
Silent and stern, each with his naked blade ! 
Their faces were like marble, where the pain — 
The pride of hate starts darkly in each vein ; 
And though death yell'd not in their stifled cry, 
He looked in silence from each wolfish eye. 

XVII. 

The moon was now within a cloudy porch 
Of night's old palace ; — 'neath her darken'd torch 
Moved in their sullenness that gaunt array — 
The hungry raven met them on their way, 
Flapping his wings in the black solitude, 
As if he snuff'd afar the scent of blood. 



24 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto I. 

Their gloomy stillness suited not the din, 
The long wild roar of mirth, that swell'd within. 
Ranged round the turrets, in their lair they lie, 
Like the hid tiger when the prey is nigh ; 
And Zariff bids a moment's wild farewell — 
A little moment — till they heard his yell ; 
Then each with falchion was to greet a guest 
Within the palace hall — they knew the rest. 
They breathed assent, — while he, with hasty foot, 
Pass'd the long draw-bridge, sullenly and mute. 
He reach'd the hall — he stood where all were gay, 
As stands a black cloud in some sunny day, 
Rearing before the sun its dusky form, 
The first dark herald of the gathering storm. 
Now Vengeance lights her torch of fiercest blaze, 
While Mercy sickens 'neath the demon's gaze ; 
Even Fancy bends a wild and weeping eye, 
And inly shudders at the carnage nigh. 

END OF CANTO FIRST. 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 



CANTO SECOND. 



I. 

Mea n while the glories of the feast arise, 

And pleasure sparkles in a thousand eyes ; 

The mutes are smiling', and the slaves are free, 

For one short night of joyous revelry. 

The dark-eyed captives of the haram bower, 

With laughing faces, try to suit the hour ; 

But though their cheek is dimpled with a smile, 

A burning tear-drop dims their eyes the while. 

Fond memory clouds each brow a moment glad, 

They think of home, and 'mid the mirth are sad ; 

They fondly dream of those delightful hours, 

When life's young pathway only lay through flowers ; 



26 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II. 

Like summer sunshine in a desert spot, 
Memory reveal'd each fair forget me not, 
Which still the spirit's eye saw dimly wave, 
The last fond wrecks on virtue's early grave, 

II. 

Yet though some pine in secret, all seem bright, 
Or those who sorrow hide their griefs to-night ; 
They must not come to mar this eve of peace, 
Or soon the emir's sword will make them cease ; 
When he has deign'd his gloomy brow to smoothe, 
All must look rosy as the lip of youth : 
No sighs to-night — no, nothing but the tone 
Of sparkling love — he shall be king alone : 
His thousand eyes shall on the banquet beam 
The fittest lights to warm time's wintry stream ; 
The stars of night may gather if they will, 
The emir's palace will have brighter still. 

III. 

High gleam the lamps within their chains of gold, 
And wine has made the weakest spirit bold ; 
A thousand harps ring out their swelling notes ; 
Far through the womb of eve the music floats, 



Canto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 27 

As if the sound held converse in the night 

With nature's spirit, 'neath the calm moonlight. 

And he of saintly garb, who lowers apart, 

As if in weary loneliness of heart — 

Of all the train, why is his swarthy brow 

And eagle eye alone in blackness now? 

Ah ! — you that stand around him, had you known 

His dreadful message, fear had turn'd to stone 

The boldest heart, and blanch'd the ripest lips, 

The wine had stood untasted in the cups. 

IV. 

The dervise garb befits young Zariff well, 
And scarcely could his kin their chieftain tell ; 
All eyes might miss him now, for all are dim 
Compared to Love's — and they are wet for him. 
Ha ! see he starts — the portals open wide — 
The emir enters and his gentle bride. 
A thousand heads, in lowliness profound, 
Are bent like drooping willows to the ground. 
The chieftain gather'd up his dusky form, 
And stood as stands an eagle in the storm, 
With moveless pinions floating on the sky, 
Measuring his victim with devouring eye. 

c 2 



28 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II. 



V. 
But, no ! it cannot be ! she was more fair 
When last they breathed affection's holy prayer ; 
Her eye was brighter, and her cheek less pale — 
The change may tell thee many a dreadful tale. 
She, like the dove, thrown from her favourite ark, 
Sees nothing but creation waste and dark ; 
She follows thee with fancy's eye in vain, 
But like the raven finds thee not again. 

VI. 

The slaves, like sea-birds, in a shining cloud, 
Wheel through the hall, — amid that happy crowd 
Comes Isidora, mournful as the bier, 
And she had sunk, had not a pillar near 
Rear'd its tall shaft, on which she rested now 
A moment, in despair, her feverish brow ; 
Her look was vacant, as the stars that eye 
From the cold sea their sisters in the sky. 
She stood like statue rooted to the stone, 
As if the glare and crowd that round her shone — 
As if all chance and change were now forgot 
Within the desert of her darkening thought. 



Canto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. ~ y 

She seem'd exempt from pleasure and from strife, 
Like something cut in marble without life. 
And ill the veil her faded forehead screens, 
The granite heap o'er which she sighs and leans 
Looks not more lifeless, while each sable tress 
Floats o'er her breast in utter carelessness. 
But now two female slaves on tip-toe glide, 
Approach, — and lead her to the emir's side ; 
Her sandal'd feet fall on the floor as light 
As moon-beams on the ocean and as white. 

VII. 

Close curly hair of deep and raven dye, 
Twined round a wrinkled forehead pale and high, 
That look'd like marble by some shadow hid, 
And scarcely tinted with a lifeless red ; 
Dark was his eye beneath a shaggy lash, 
His whiskers dark, — and darker his mustache ; 
Scorn in his glance her arrows seem'd to dip, 
And doubt and pride sat on his ashy lip ; 
Such was the emir, as his gentle bride 
Droop'd in her silent sorrow by his side. 
'Twas well she gazed not round — a shriek had told 
Each turban'd slave the muffled dervise bold : 



30 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II. 

And he, her warrior, saw the bridal throng 
Pass through the hall amid the voice of song ; 
He saw a well-known shape — a well-known word 
Broke on his ear— -no other sound he heard ; 
A sickening mist a moment dimm'd his eye, 
He saw a form, like sunburst, pass him by ; 
He saw a vision, and a gentle face 
Leaning in woe upon a pillar s base ; 
And he remembers — 'tis a misty dream, 
But yet his eye can ne'er forget the beam 
Of the young living face, that now appears 
So like the star that lit his earlier years ; 
He deems the whole a trance of fond despair, 
He looks again — she still is drooping there. 
Oh, yes ! he knows her well — with desperate hand 
He sternly grasps unseen his sheathless brand, 
Scarce could his bursting soul restrain her wing 
To clasp his love ; he stood prepared to spring, 
When, ah ! the two bright captives came, and he 
Was left again in gloomy re very. 

VIII. 

By this the revelry was at its height, 
And life unfetter'd look'd one moment bright ; 



Canto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 3 1 

So fair the eyes — so sweet the music now, 

That even a smile lit up the emir's brow. 

To Isidora pleasure's voice was vain, 

The sparkling jest, the harp's enlivening strain, 

Pass'd far away, and holier music stole 

From memory's magic cords across her soul. 

Her thoughts are wandering on another shore, 

The sunshine of the past is darted o'er ; 

Those heavenly scenes of youth, which still are seen 

Amid the waste of memory, calm and green, 

And though her eye through sorrow's mist appears, 

It looks the lovelier in its bed of tears, 

Like summer rainbows — that will only rise 

The brightest cradled in the weeping skies : 

The present flutter of her bosom threw 

Her sleeping charms more freshly to the view, 

Like the rude breeze that ruffles o'er the flower, 

Though it may break it in an evil hour, 

Yet spreads its lustre with its pinions chill, 

And makes its dying hour its sweetest still. 

IX. 
There was a lay — the emir loved it well, 
Though tinged with freedom ere her children fell, 



3% THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II. 

An old rude melody, which had its birth 

In the fresh spring-time of the infant earth ; 

A lay which liberty had made sublime, 

Warm with the feelings of the sunny clime 

Of beauteous Greece, when she, upon the waters, 

Sat like a goddess 'mid her sea-green daughters. 

Jt was a simple song ; and freemen still 

Might chant it on the desert heath at will ; 

The emir loved it, and a Grecian youth 

Could touch the harp, and even the despot soothe. 

The tyrant gave the signal, with a look 

Which told delay his spirit ill could brook ; 

The captive caught it with a trembling smile, 

Tuned the low cords into a note the while ; 

As expectation round the banquet ran 

He struck the strings, — and with a sigh began : 

SONG. 

" Come to the desert, lovely one, 
Our tribes shall guard thee on thy way, 
And long before the rising sun, 
We'll rest upon the mountains grey •, 
There will we sleep, beneath the tree, 
The beauteous palm that waves above, 
And nothing but the brave and free 
Shall guard the hunter and his love. 



Cawto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 

" The flowers that woo the desert air 
Shall gem alone thy guileless breast 
The only plumage for thy hair 
Shall be the eagle's dusky crest. 
We'll journey to those wastes sublime 
Where freedom her pavilion rears, 
Where rosy love, instead of time, 
Tells out our long and happy years." 

Thus 'mid his bands of freeborn men, 
Thus sang my love, nor thought to part ; 
For oh ! no chains were woven then 
To bind the hand and break the heart. 
Now is my warrior far away, 
And I, beside the summer deep, 
May sit, and mourn our hope's decay — 
He cannot see me when I weep. 

X. 

As onward roll'd the music of the song, 
The warrior stood amid the festive throng, 
Bit his pale lip, until the dark blood burst- 
In vain his soul her gathering passion nursed. 
All eyes might have beheld, had they but known, 
The one whose look, like mustering thunder, shone, 

c 3 



33 



34 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II 

Sullen, and black, and savage, as the light 

Heralding an earthquake in the dead of night. 

His lov'd one heeded not, hut sat with face 

Bent on the blue serenity of space, 

That broke around the revellers cold and pale, 

And oft she sigh'd while listening to the gale — 

The fresh sweet breeze of night, that seem'd to be^ 

Abroad, to mock her with its liberty ; 

And many a geny too brilliant for despair, 

Flash'd from the dark waves of her braided hair, 

And tne wild wreath of flowers around her brow 

Seem'd on its chilliness in mockery now ; 

The mournful music breathing from her eye, 

Told that she wish'd death's icy farewell nigh ; 

Her lips were parted, and her rosy mouth, 

Through which the sweetest language of the south, 

Like song, had flow'd, were curved without a groan, 

And wore that look, which Guido's hand has thrown, 

With all the poet, all the painter's fires, 

Around his Magdalene, as she expires — 

That dreaming agony — that thrill of pain — 

That trance of feeling — and that mist of brain — 

That languid dizziness of soul and eye, 

Which speaks a broken heart, and darkness nigh. 



Canto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 35 

XT. 

A moment's pause — oppress'd with love and wine, 
The emir rises for the marriage shrine. 
Ay, Zariff, hold thy sabre sheathless now, 
But hide that cloud which gathers on thy brow ; 
Apply thy whistle — sound it far and well, 
Thy band will answer nobly to the yell ; 
Each in his lair waits silent for thy foes, 
Like death above two armies ere they close. 
The despot grasps her hand — a tear has slid, 
Big, bright, and burning from her ivory lid ; 
A flush hath pass'd her forehead, like the ray 
Of moonshine gathering cold and far away ; 
She heeded not the emir's glance, but turn'cl 
Where, in their beauty, eve's high watchers burn'd, 
Their dim blue lustre showering down through space 
Fell through the wide saloon upon her face, 
Tinging its marble whiteness as she bent 
Like pity weeping o'er some monument. 

XII. 

And when he saw his smile had not the charm 
To call up hers as brilliantly and warm, 



36 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II. 

Her gentle form he dark and sternly scann'd, 
Bit his curl'd lip, and clench'd his bony hand, 
Leering — and in his leer the air of death, 
With temples flush'd, fix'd eye, and hollow breath, 
Short as the whelpless tigress when she eyes 
Beneath her fangs the bleeding foe — he tries 
To curse, but passion chok'd the venom'd draught, 
Hyena like, he only stood and laugh'd, 
Savage, and hoarse, and panting, while the beam 
Of his red eye lowers on her, like the gleam 
Of the dark tempest, whose unscabbar'd light 
Plays round some statue, ere its falchion smite 
With levelling edge, the heaven devoted bust 
Showering the shiver'd marble in the dust ; 
While she before his frown of darkness bow'd, 
Pale as the moon that fronts some stormy cloud. 
" By God's great prophet, thou shalt feel the power 
Of him thou scorn'st upon his bridal hour ! 
This bosom was not made for thy disdain — 
Here, shrinking minion, this will end thy pain !" 
He cried, and whirled his shining blade on high, 
Nought echo'd through the palace but a sigh — 
A long low sigh — a shudder — -and a groan, 
That might have turn'd the boldest heart to stone, 



Canto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 37 

A hollow groan — a murmur from the floor — 
One transient struggle — -and the whole was o'er ! 
But there arose one wild unearthly yell, 
Far louder than the scream of her who fell — 
A wild and savage shout — a glance — and then 
The sabre's sparkle, and the fall of men ! 
The whistle 's blown — its echoes answer shrill, 
His band are rushing desperate up the hill ; 
They clear the hall like tempest, when it sweeps 
The heavy corn, and lays its trembling heaps. 
The shout of death the reeling concave fills, 
Like thunder breaking on a thousand hills. 
While Zariff springs upon his savage foe, 
With giant arm he hew'd the despot low, 
Whose shelly eyeball moveless as he reel'd 
With hue of ice his latest wish reveal'd. 
Revenge — one blow at parting — one wild grasp, 
More firm than friendship's — but his husky gasp 
Makes the wish vain — he heaves his latest pang, 
While o'er the bleeding trunk the warrior sprang, 
To join his band, who, faithful to his call, 
Stood, the dark victors of the banquet hall, 
With red arms bared, and turbans deeply gilt, 
And falchions clotted to the very hilt. 



38 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II, 

The guests stand mute in horror, like the crew 

Of some storm- shatter'd galley, when in view 

Rolls the last thunder of the mountain wave 

They know must shroud them in its darksome grave ; 

Each eye is bent upon its yawning brink, 

They shrink — they waver not — but with it sink : 

So stood the astonished throng, and only reel 

Beneath the stern sweep of the victor's steel, 

Like the despairing thousands of a town, 

When earthquake treads her marble columns down. 

XIII. 

Now are the harpstrings mute — the goblets shine 
Full to the brim, but who shall drink the wine ? 
The revellers sleep with dim and blood-shot eyes, 
Starting in death, and gazing on the skies 
That dully break in that deserted place, 
And stream in mockery o'er each faded face. 
Some on the marble pavement coldly lay 
With blades half-drawn, as if to meet the fray ; 
Others with stretch'd-out arm, and lip of wrath, 
As if they long'd to strike one blow ere death. 
Revenge is writ on every sallow brow, 
Stamp'd by the sword — it cannot alter now. 



Canto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 39 

XIV. 

The dome is silent all, save where the yell 
Of the far flying wretches feebly swell 
Along the night sky, and makes music drear 
To the cold freezing stillness reigning here. 
Still lingers one — the only thing with life, 
O'er which hath swept the hurricane of strife. 
Though deep the gash that yawns upon her brow, 
Her gentle heart is beating still — and now 
Behold ! that chieftain, maddening in his woe, 
With sabre dripping from the slaughter'd foe, 
Moving among the sleepers, pale and mute, 
With eye of horror, and with hurried foot ; 
On every female brow that meets his sight, 
Wan as the marble in the green moon -light, 
He bends his glance, and throws the clotted hair 
Back from his forehead, and with stony glare 
Follows the lines of every faded cheek, 
So wildly beautiful in life's last streak, 
Then with a groan darts hurriedly away, 
To pause above another heap of clay. 



^ u THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II. 

XV. 

But, ha ! his eye has singled from the throng 
The one his spirit panted for so long ! 
As o'er her form he bent, he groan'd — he shook, 
As the worn willow o'er its kindred brook. 
She lives ! she lives ! the tyrant's blow was vain 
Amid this night of death — she's his again ! 
And Isidora, — though her heart was chill, 
Heard a mild mournful voice remember'd still, 
Awaking slowly from her dizzy trance, 
She bent on him a fond, a maddening glance, 
And raised her large dark eye, as pure and bright 
As moonshine flashing through a storm at night ; 
Her heavy orb now oped, and lovelier grew, 
While he, the sunbeam of her spirit, flew 
Again to her cold arms, which feebly press'd 
Her long lost warrior to her bleeding breast. 
Above the beautiful, he fondly bung 
Like eagle cowering o'er his dying young. 
Ah ! life is struggling in her heaving breath, 
And on her forehead is the chill of death — 
That awful shadow, which the grave bestows 
On the cold face, ere life's last glimmer close. 



Canto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 4 1 

Yet she is happy in her latest hour — 
She has again her spirit's brightest dower ! 
A moment past, she thought she must depart 
In weary, hopeless loneliness of heart, 
Without one eye to shed a tear o'er her, 
Without one sigh above her sepulchre : 
Oh ! now in joy, her soul its bonds can burst 
On the warm breast of her affection's first ! 
Heaven now repays her for her nights of gloom, 
By this last sun-burst darted o'er her tomb : 
Though life was bitter, fortune has let fall 
One drop of honey in its tide of gall ! 
But ah ! hope dawns like an unfriendly hour 
In which, from leafy sleep, some gentle flower, 
Woo'd by the early smile of treacherous skies, 
Starts, buds, expands, then languishes, and dies. 

XVI. 

Haste, warrior of the wild ! and reach the main — 
Thy band are struggling with the foe in vain ; 
Thousands on thousands rush to the alarms, 
Drawn by the blazing towers and clashing arms, 
And hem them round — yet 'mid the fearful fray 
They nobly combat, and make good their way ; 



42 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II. 

Now free — now shrouded in the gathering fight, 
Like wintry stars among the clouds of night ; 
JNow lost — now breaking to thy straining view, 
They battle on to reach the waters blue. 
Each sabre's clash tells to thy listening ear 
That giant Death is now approaching near. 
The charge — the tug — the grapple — and the yell, 
In mingled din, throughout the palace swell ! 
Thy stately galley waits for thine and thee — 
Oh ! haste and reach thy empire of the sea ; 
Freedom and life is on the freshening deep, 
Chains on the shore, and death's eternal sleep ! 

XVII. 

Zariff beheld his native band approach — 
They needed now no aid from lamp or torch ; 
The blazing turrets show'd the fearful track, 
Which they had yet to measure nobly back — 
Show'd him the turbans of the gathering foe, 
Line over line like drifts of wintry snow ; 
While high above, the sabre's flashing bars 
Shone o'er their surface like a thousand stars. 
He only gave his band one cheering look, 
His glittering blade again he grimly shook, 



Canto II. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 43 

And eyed his foemen with a stony glare, 
Then like the awful spirit of despair, 
He swung his virgin to his manly breast, 
And stood conspicuous by his eagle crest, 
Against the thousands, that were rushing on ; 
Their only trump — death's solitary groan. 
High is the heart, and strong the red right hand, 
That now for Isidora waves the brand, 
That cuts a passage to the dark blue sea, 
Where floats in light their bark of liberty ! 

XVIIL 

Though borne by numbers, each unshrinking hand 
Is glued like marble to the dripping brand ; 
Nought but the gasp of their suspended breath 
Breaks the stern hush'd magnificence of death ; 
While in the grappling fight each frenzied soul 
Strikes deep and deadly at its parting goal. 
One glorious effort ! — they have gain'd the tide, 
Still they must battle bravely by its side. 
Now all have reach'd the sheltering bark, but those 
Who need no aid from friends, nor wound from foes. 
Stretch'd 'neath a host, in slaughter redly pent, 
Buried they lie in that wild monument ; 



44 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto II. 

Shrouded in death, they cannot hear your call — 
Away ! — their swords have well revenged their fall ! 
Away ! — the fresh gale of the bounding main 
Sings in your ears fair freedom's hymn again ! 
The sea-birds are your playmates- — and the breeze 
Your old companion on the mighty seas ! 
No tyrant's sword can chase you o'er the wave, 
The deep is not a palace for the slave ! 
Hold to your oars ! far distant is your home, 
But there are eyes to hail you when you come ! 
See, morn begins to lace his doublet grey, 
And sweep yon host of laughing stars away ; 
The sun will rise, but find you on the deep, 
Far from the hated walls where captives weep ; 
And though companionless, are ye not still 
The children of the desert and the hill — 
The sons of nature's mighty solitude, 
Pleased with your Mother in her wildest mood ? 
Then stretch away, though friendless and alone, 
That glorious world of waters is your own ! 

END OF CANTO SECOND. 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 



CANTO THIRD. 



I. 

'Tis morn: the sun in living light has oped 

His orient portals, and in glory dropp'd 

His golden banner o'er the jocund sky, 

To rouse mankind to triumph, weep, or die. 

Like a young ocean spirit fair and free, 

The bounding galley swept the freshening sea ; 

Nought broke the calm, that round the waters spread, 

But a long line of vultures o'er their head, 

Pouring from the far deserts of the east, 

To reach the emir's turrets, where a feast 

Was spread for them by Zariff and his host, 

Along the black crags of that savage coast, 



46 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

So mute those prowlers wander'd, and so high, 
They made no motion in the waveless sky, 
But seem'd like specks, engraven on the blue 
Of the wild voiceless region where they flew. 

II. 

Though fair the breeze that swells the vessel's sail, 
Yet on her deck is many a forehead pale, — 
The hue of death, or hatred's darker cloud, 
The groan of pain, or discontent more loud ; 
The thought of captives, lost for ever now, 
Flung a deep shade on every swarthy brow ; 
This late adventure had come badly off, 
And friends at home are ever prone to scon 7 , 
When there's no golden proof — no spoil to show 
The fearful struggle with a vanquished foe ; 
And though the hour of strife may lull to rest 
Those master passions of the savage breast — 
Women and gold — yet when the battle's by, 
The heart repines, when nothing greets the eye 
But wounds, and fallen comrades, and despair, 
In many a closing eye's unearthly glare. 
So 'mid that war-bark's heroes might be seen, 
Brows pale in death or darkly knit in spleen ; 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL XIGHT. 47 

Some pace the deck like plague-struck men, who hear 

The cry of dying thousands in their ear ; 

And others gazed upon the sea, with look 

Which said, this sluggish change they ill could brook ; 

Pale lip compressed, and on each forehead chill 

The savage wish to bleed and battle still ; 

While others brooded o'er the shatter'd wreck 

Of life that writh'd upon the gory deck, 

And though they seem'd in thoughtlessness at rest, 

Their troubled eye another tale express'd, 

Which, like the sleeping tempest on the hill, 

Although it thunders not has lightning still. 

Linger'd a firmer band around their chief, 

Who lost their own within their leader's grief ; 

Though most of them were bleeding by his side, 

They stood in all the majesty of pride, 

Strong in the hour of trial, unsubdued, 

As lions in their own wild solitude. 

III. 

Stretch'd on a war-cloak Isidora lay, 
Her spirit passing like a dream away, 
Gentle as summer zephyrs, when they die 
Upon the bosom of a breezeless sky ; 



48 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Ca>:tc III. 

A moment's hectic cross'd her bloodless cheek, 

Like day's last sunbeams playing o'er the peak 

Of some far snowy mountain, though they skim 

Along the ice, yet, ah ! how cold and dim ! 

They cannot melt the frozen heap beneath, 

But only beautify the frown of death ; 

So is that flush — 'twas but a transient glare, 

The twilight of the grave again is there ; 

So calm her last good-night, love seems to steal 

The sting from death, that she may only feel 

That sleep which comes the broken heart to heal. 

IV. 

As star-lights start along the midnight main, 
Dawn'd life's young visions o'er her darken'd brain ; 
Sleep falls like music on her weary soul, 
As if to plume it for its darkest goal ; 
And but her parted lips, from which the sigh 
Struggled into existence, she did lie 
Pale as the summer bow's departing ray, 
Like little clouds that sometimes rise and stray 
Across the dying moon ; her tresses now 
Shade the pure alabaster of her brow. 
Above her bends her chief, as if to mark 
A resting place for hope amid the dark ; 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 49 

He hears her murmur in her sleep — a tone 

Like music in a dream broken and lone : 

At first inaudible, then it became 

A living sound — he heard her breathe his name, 

And one might see her spirit in her sleep 

Felt all the pangs of those who part and weep ; 

And as he grasp'd her hand, so white and chill, 

He saw the pure blood rush — he felt the thrill 

That bounded with that pressure to her breast 

Which told him that she knew the hand she press'd ; 

Awake or slumbering — still unforgot 

His image fill'd her memory's greenest spot. 

V. 

The sky is blue and beautiful — the breeze 
Makes love upon the bosom of the seas ; 
But soon the gale will fan thy lifeless head — 
The narrow house, fair sleeper ! is thy bed. 
The sun to-morrow will illume the wave — 
The sun will rise and glitter on thy grave ! 
The lonely stars, that were on many a night 
Companions of thy wanderings, will light 
Again their torches at the summer moon, — 
But will they grant thee life's frail feverish boon ? 

D 



U THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

The long night cometh, but it comes to thee 
Dark with the shadows of eternity ! 
She breathes adieu — and setting in the grave, 
Dim as the misty moonlight on the wave, 
The spirit wanes within her glazing eye — 

And, ah ! what scenes — what thoughts of days gone by 

What vanish'd visions of long vanish'd years 
Speak in those glassy orbs that set in tears ? 
But oh ! the night of death is lone and chill, 
And she is nothing — whom he worships still ! 

VI. 

Gone are his pleasures, never to return, 
His bosom now is like the hollow urn 
That holds the dust of the distinguisb'd dead — 
There lie hope's ashes, but her soul is fled ! 
Although his morn of life is scarcely up, 
And though its smile has only gilt his cup, 
Yet transient beam'd that radiance round his heart, 
The night has gather'd and he must depart ; 
His brain is dark — its light hath pass'd away, 
Gone like the beam that glitter'd yesterday ; 
Yes, it is done ! her latest pang is o'er, 
What death has struck shall never suffer more. 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 51 

And has she perish 'd? — come, and view that brow, 
And death will answer every question now. 
His hand has turn'd that gentle heart to stone, 
And dragg'd the spirit from its azure throne. 
Yet she is beautiful — and on her face 
Lingers the shadow of each morning grace, 
As if her dust were marble, and love's mould 
Is graven on it never to grow old. 
She lies, as if her sunk and shrouded eye 
Saw through the blue interminable sky, 
Her spirit travelling with unblemish'd wing, 
Child of the stars, a bright undying thing. 

VII. 

The hardy crew stood gazing on the dead 
With silent look of agony and dread. 
Death they had often seen, but ne'er before 
To them his look such awful beauty wore : 
Though in the battle with the dripping brand, 
They oft had shook the spectre hand to hand, 
They never paused till now to mark his streak, 
Frozen so deeply on so fair a cheek ; 
Their deeds were in confusion wildly wrought, 
Which gave no moment for the eye of thought, 

d 2 



5% THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

To scan the awful picture of the fray ; 
But now they saw him sit above his prey ; 
And as the pinions of the wandering gale 
Moved the dark ringlets on her forehead pale. 
And the deep shadows of the ocean threw 
Athwart her face a more unearthly hue, 
The mournful vision struck their souls with fear, 
And superstition lent its aid to sear 
Their stormy spirits, as with pious care 
They wreathed the long rich tresses of her hair 
With the green sea-weed drifting on the tide, 
Fit ornament for valour's spotless bride. 

VIII. 

The sea-flowers, leaping through the living spray, 
Told there was land not many leagues away, — 
Perchance a spot to make a lonely grave 
Upon the hem of the eternal wave — 
A tomb whose canopy would be the clouds, 
Whose watchers the pale star-lights in their shrouds, 
Where the grey eagle of the hill might chant, 
And the fresh breeze, the deep's inhabitant, 
Sing o'er her dust a requiem sweetly wild, 
Dear to the soul of freedom's loveliest child. 



Canto III THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 

IX. 
While thus his comrades gazed upon the dead, 
While thus in woe they plann'd her lowly bed, 
The chieftain sat, as if he still could trace 
Her spirit hovering o'er her cold white face ; 
The red sky gleam'd above him, and the main 
Threw up its laughing crimson waves in vain ; 
The war-bark bounded on — he heeded not, 
But sat a statue in the trance of thought, 
Gazing intensely on her marble brow, 
As if he felt in his affliction now 
A hope, that, while her ashes met his eye, 
The soul that warm'd them would be hovering nigh. 
Ay, weep, fond mourner ! but thy tears are vain — 
They cannot cool the fever at thy brain — 
That longing of the soul, which, though she knows 
Is vain, yet memory's eyelids will not close. 
Thine is the worst of fates, for thou canst see 
The dreadful truth, the dark reality, 
Where no bright dream of fancy dare invest 
With hope's enchantment the forsaken breast. 
In sorrow's hour, the warm and manly heart, 
Although it sinks not, owns affliction's dart, 



53 



54 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

While colder, coward souls unmoved can keep 
Those tears which nature never bade them weep. 
Yes, Zariff felt his manliness subdued, 
Nor blush'd at last to own the melting mood ; 
He fondly thought on many a vanish'd bliss, 
Departed pleasures, now no longer his ; 
Those scenes that blossom 'mid affliction's strife, 
But steal unheeded through the calm of life ; 
Those little traits of love that haunt the mind, 
Like sunshine visiting in sleep the blind, 
Calm and delightful, such a heavenly beam 
As will not vanish with the fading dream, 
But haunt the soul for ever, and remain 
A living spot within the wither d brain. 

X. 

The sun look'd on them in its wrath, like God 
When gazing on the world beneath the load 
Of the wild flood — while in the east afar 
The moon came rolling, with one stormy star 
Over the muttering sea — a wanderer, 
Like mercy gazing on a sepulchre. 
The sunny veil, that hung o'er nature's brow. 
Begins to flutter on her forehead now ; 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 55 

The waters, rolling howlingly and fast, 
Are split before the red share of the blast ; 
The storm begins to blow — his gusty squalls 
And the dark shadow of his coming falls 
Around their galley — those who know the birth 
Of tempests, see one gathering o'er the earth ; 
No passing cloud, but one eternal pall 
Of pitchy gloom, that seems to mantle all. 
The band of ZarifF, who, like wild birds, keep 
Their path in darkness o'er the whirling deep, 
The blast their playmate, and the bark their home, 
Ocean their pillow, and the sky their dome ; 
Bred on the sea, and nursed where tempests dwell, 
Know the wild wayward mood of nature well. 
And now they had a moment's cause to dread — 
The mustering hurricane swung o'er their head, 
And the sharp wind the whistling waters lash'd ; 
And in each face the spray in torrents dash'd ; 
Sullen they stood, as on their galley swung, 
And through their cordage the wild breezes sung, 
Like wailing spirits in the murky blast, 
Shrieking their death-note as they hurry past. 
Each look is fix'd in that devoted bark 
On the far clouds that gather deep and dark, 



56 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

As if to read the language of the sky, 

The only book familiar to their eye, 

Type of the world before them spread the waves, 

One boundless universe of storms and graves. 

High sweeps the war-bark o'er the breaking surge, 

Wide yawn the deeps around her— and they urge 

Her straining hulk along the flashing spray, 

Light as the leaf the tempest sweeps away, 

The waves have swathed her in their snowy shrouds : 

Now stands the red moon 'mid the rushing clouds, 

Like death in the far solitude of space, 

Looking in darkness on the human race. 

The hissing flood the shivering galley wrapp'd, 

While, through the dark, the storm's red spirit clapp'd 

His swarthy hands, and, shouting long and loud, 

Lash'd his black chargers o'er the thunder cloud ! 

XI. 

In vain the shatter'd galley stagger'd on ; 
Her mast was rent — her sails and rudder gone; 
Around her reel'd the sea with shriek of death, 
As if an earthquake's spirit flounced beneath ; 
The black sky yawn'd, but ocean mock'd its yell, 
With his own roar, as wild and terrible ; 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 57 

The wind ran whistling through his hall — and loud 

Wave rose and call'd to wave, and cloud to cloud ; 

All was extinguish'd, save when, through the sky, 

The fiery-footed lightning hurried by, — 

Not like one gleam upon its jagged flight, 

But cataract rushing from some mountain's height, 

Rousing the ocean spirits as they pass'd, 

Who shook their watery tresses to the blast ! 

The crash of storms — the hiss — the bolt— the glare — - 

The wave — the wind — swept through the strangled air, 

Loud as that thunder which will welcome in 

The last dark day upon a world of sin, 

When the archangel spreads his wings abroad. 

And startles nature with the trump of God ! 

XII. 

The chief beheld the tempest rushing by, 
But heeded not the wild voice of the sky ; 
He only sigh'd — whene'er the wrathful storm 
Curl'd the white garments round a beauteous form, 
And gave a moment's life to each long tress, 
That slept upon a brow of nothingness. 
He sat in sullenness ; and when the spray 
Was dash'd upon the face that by him lay, 

d 3 



5® THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

In silence still he only wiped the streak 
Of the cold foam from his pale virgin's cheek, 
Wrung the rich ringlets which the blast had spread, 
And calmly wreathed them round her gentle head. 

XIII. 

Now wild and fearful mutterings began, 
From lip to lip with lightning speed they ran ; 
Each eye is turn'd with strange unearthly fear, 
First to the cold face stretch' d upon the bier, 
Then to the chief, as if each glance would fain 
Dart through the midnight darkness of his brain, 
And catch the various thoughts which wander'd there, 
And weigh his feelings with their own despair. 
Another threatening murmur now has burst — 
Another still more fearful than the first ; 
And see amid the gloom, darkly and dread, 
Each swarthy hand points to the beauteous dead, 
With burning lips apart, and gasping breath, 
That seem'd suspended in the thirst for death ! 
" Yes, yes ! the storm is waked alone for her — 
There lies the dust, and here the sepulchre ! 
For her this tempest swathes us on the deep, 
When she is gone-r— the floods again will sleep. 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 59 

The spirit of the waters hovers near, 
And flaps his pall of clouds above yon bier." 
Thus ran the withering cry of wild despair 
From lip to lip each brow, each tone, each glare ; 
Told the black purpose of the gloomier soul 
Writhing 'neath superstition's dark control. 

XIV. 

Nursed in the depths of mountain solitude, 
Where fiercest passions rule alone the blood, 
Where all that frenzy dreams of soon finds birth, 
And savage virtue is the highest worth ; 
His crew, beneath whose grasp each tyrant droops, 
Though madly brave, were superstition's dupes ; 
A dream — a spell had greater power to crush 
Their rugged hearts than havoc's wildest rush, 
Where sword meets sword, and death alone extends 
The stern embrace alike to foes and friends. 
And now they deem'd the storm beset their path, 
Because their galley held the form of death ; 
In their wild terror they but thought it just, 
That dust at last should be consign'd to dust ; 
They could not see the thousand nameless ties 
Which bind love's relics to a lover's eyes ; 



60 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

Death they could meet, defiance in their air, 
But could not look upon him lying there, 
So calm — so cold — oh no ! the waters blue 
Must shroud that dreadful vision from their view. 

XV. 

The storm increases — o'er its yawning track ; 
The howling tempest walks sublimely black, 
Dashing the boiling ocean into mist, 
Following each bolt that through the gloom hath hiss'd ! 
The thunders lift their voices to the sky, 
Like chaos shrieking through infinity ! 
'Twas vain to strive in such an hour of dread— 
The sea must be young Isidora's bed ; 
When she is gone, the giant waves may sleep — 
Then haste and plunge her in the whirling deep ! 
Why pause when all is horror and despair ? 
Ah ! well they mark her warrior standing there, 
Like tiger panting o'er his slaughter'd young, 
When the first hunter's dart has o'er him sung. 
Oh ! there are moments, when the burning heart 
Must act ere reason takes a busy part ! 
The warrior knew the bitterest cup was quaff'd — 
He only heard their threats, and madly laugh'd. 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL_NIGHT. 6 1 

His turban stream'd upon the broken storm, 
His snowy sash twined round his swarthy arm ; 
His dark eye fix'd, his forehead high and bare, 
The blast had spread his links of coal-black hair, 
Which dangled largely round his awful head, 
Like the roused lion when his mane is spread ; 
His proud lip cuiTd, his gasp like that of death, 
Hoarse as the ocean when it yawns to breathe ; 
His arm was lifted to the lowering sky, 
His teeth were set — his band were standing by, 
With looks that told their minds were firmly bent, 
And swords prepared to aid their wild intent. 

XVI. 

Silent and savagely their looks they fix'd, 
As if to blast each other ere they mix'd, 
Now a dark threat, first spoken by the eye, — 
Then murmur'd — eeho'd in one stormy cry- — 
Bursts from a few cold hearts that could not bear 
Their chieftain's calmness and their own despair. 
A savage threat, if none might them oppose, 
To free the ship of dead and living foes ; 
But soon that wish is silenced by the look 
Of many a faithful eye, that could not brook 



62 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Casto III. 

Wrong to their chief in hours so dark and chill, 
At least by hearts his own — his fearless still. 
He heard their threats — but heeded not — his view 
Is fix'd upon the waters ; and he knew 
That ere to-morrow's dawn the troubled deep 
May be the mansion where they all w r ould sleep 
Beneath the wave in either's arms at peace — 
Their strife would vanish and the tempest cease. 
Pleased with these thoughts, in heaviness of heart, 
He left the dead — and from his crew apart 
He spoke not — sigh'd not — but, with brow aghast, 
Lean'd in a gloomy trance against the mast. 

XVII. 

With joy his crew beheld the sunshine now 
Stealing a moment o'er his sallow brow ; 
Yet loath to break his heart, they tried again 
To brave the tempest, but it was in vain ; 
Then turn'd their eyes to him, as if to show 
'Twas heaven itself that will'd the fatal blow ; 
Though mute their lips, their look was darkly deep, 
Such as a spirit gives, unused to weep ; 
Then they approach'd the bier where slept the maid — 
None touch'd a gem with which she was array'd ; 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 63 

The diamonds glitter'd in her long black hair ; 

The waves will shroud them — they may sparkle there ; 

The strings of pearls are still around her neck, 

The gems of gold her temples coldly deck ; 

Those wedding ornaments, in gaudy trim, 

111 suit a brow so cold, an eye so dim : — 

And as they bore her from her couch, the blast, 

With ruffian gust, athwart her forehead pass'd, 

Raising the ringlets from these features, — when 

She seem'd upbraiding them in death — 'twas then 

The chieftain heard them pass, but never took 

From the cold deck his fix'd and lowering look ; 

Yet all might see his bosom's mighty heave, 

As if his soul from earth was taking leave. 

'Tis done !— one plunge within the restless sea 

Proclaims their triumph — and his misery ! 

The hollow splash, the whirling of the stream, 

Like roll of thunder, broke upon his dream ; 

He bent his maddening eye, to take the last 

Long farewell look, before the vision pass'd ; 

He saw the waves receive her beauteous clay, 

He saw the white surf bear it far away ; 

And through the glassy tide his eye could trace 

A transient glitter of her cold white face ; 



64 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

He saw her bright brow, in its sinking motion, 
Float like a moment's moonshine on the ocean, 
While her dark hair, loose in dishevell'd charm, 
And one dead motion of her fair round arm, 
Which, as she sunk within the yawning tide, 
One dreadful moment skiff a the vessel's side, 
And seem'd as waving him a long adieu ! — 
His brain grew sick — a mist beset his view — 
His eye spun dizzy, and his gasping breath 
Seem'd rattling in the fiery thirst of death ; 
But yet he sigh'd not — though his heart beat deep, 
Before his crew he scorn'd at last to weep ; 
But staggering back, with eye of fix'd disdain 
Against the broken mast he lean'd again. 

XVIII. 

Their threats were o'er ; but now the broken wave 
Hung yawning o'er the galley like a grave, 
While shriek'd the tempest through the boiling sleet, 
Spreading its masses like a winding sheet 
Above the crew, who, now that hope was gone, 
Stood on the deck like images of stone, 
With fix'd orbs starting in their straining view, 
As if they wish'd to pierce death through and through, . ' 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 65 

Then grapple him and perish ; and their chief, 
With heart high swelling more in wrath than grief, 
Stands as the Hebrew stood, before he rent 
The marble shafts of Dagon's temple, pent 
Amid the ruin of the waters, high 
His naked arm around the mast — his eye 
Deep, darkly flashing on the thundery air, 
As if the lightning show'd his virgin there. 
The sea like mantle swings athwart his breast, 
His raven tresses, now his only crest, 
Stream on the broken hurricane — his grasp, 
Strong as a giant's, grips, with desperate clasp, 
The rattling cordage, while the vessel swung, 
Like drunkard o'er the floods that round her sung 
Their song of death — and on his bearded lip 
Disdain and pride have drank each quiver up, 
And with his spirit's striving, and the strain 
Of his strong limbs, full many a purple vein, 
Swollen and black, in their wild tension now 
Start round his stately neck and haughty brow\ 

XIX. 

By this a leak had swamp'd their shatter'd bark ; 
They saw the world departing, and the dark 



66 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

Night of eternity begin to close 

Its sunless shadows round their day of woes. 

Hope now was dead, as they had shrunk before 

And wrong'd their chief, whom they can serve no more, 

They blush'd to ask forgiveness, but they stood 

Serenely gloomy in unshaken mood. 

'Twas now they scorn'd to shrink — they felt a pride 

At thus expiring by their leader's side, 

Defiance in their air — the same which they 

Had often worn on many a dreadful day. 

They stood collected, though death met their view, 

As if they long'd to welcome one they knew, 

Not tremble at his dark approach — and now 

A savage mirth sat lightly on each brow, 

At the wild thought of thus expiring free 

Upon their own loved element, the sea — 

At dying thus as patriot brothers should, 

And knelTd by nature in her wildest mood, 

No tyrant's tread to sully their deep grave — 

Their only mourner the eternal wave. 

They turn and eye their chief, as if to mark 

The thoughts that cross'd him in an hour so dark ; 

As if they wish'd to see if their last act 

Atoned for the rude strife some moments back ; 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 67 

As if they long'd to witness, ere their end, 

One glance that told them he was still their friend. 

The lightning pass'd them in its jagged flight, 

Wild as the gleam of Etna seen at night ; 

Its burning arrows smote the hissing air 

Beneath its torch — and he is standing there, 

A beam of triumph in his hollow eye : 

It is enough — they now are proud to die. 

XX. 

Yes, he has yearn'd unto his native band ! 
They were the children of his father's land ! 
He felt a savage joy to see them wait 
So calm and gallantly the frown of fate ; 
And they must part as friends, who oft have stood 
And proved that holy token with their blood. 
What though in hours gone by their threats were rude ? 
'Twas but despair that waked that moment's feud. 
Now they are knit at parting — they shall sink, 
Not like cold bosoms sever 'd link by link, 
But by each other's side, as freemen lie, 
Who grapple death triumphantly and die. 



68 



THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 



XXI. 

Now they embrace each other — and the heart 
A moment shudders, at the thought to part 
From what it long had loved — had known — had felt, 
And proved in many a deed that will not melt 
With all the other scenes of days gone by, 
But to the latest haunt life's closing eye. 
They pause — around them rolls the black abyss ; 
The galley reels — they cling, they fondly kiss- — 
'Tis o'er — each proud lip quivers not — they stand 
Link'd like a band of spectres hand in hand ; 
The white spray dashing on their brows — their hair 
Streaming abroad upon the squally air ; 
Each swarthy eye, that day-star of the face, 
Seems fix'd to marble in its hollow case ; 
The thunder tears on high its fiery road — 
A moment's hurried prayer ascends to God, 
Short and convulsive, hope's expiring groan, 
Where all the spirit echoes in the tone ; 
Again they're swathed in ocean's dark eclipse — 
That thrilling prayer has left their ashy lips — 
Has peal'd — has died along the midnight air : 
The sea rolls on — no ship is drifting there ! 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 69 

One lonely eddy whirling in the blast, 
One broken splinter of a floating mast, 
Some shatter'd shreds of rigging and a sail, 
With here and there a turban on the gale, 
And for a moment, ere drawn down for ever, 
A few convulsive hands — a gasp — a quiver — 
A livid face — a wild, a starting eye, 
Bent in its last despair upon the sky — 
A heave — a shriek — a whirl amid the sea — 
A frenzied clench — a groan of agony — 
That hollow groan bespeaks their latest woes : 
'Tis silent ! and the waters o'er them close ; 
The mountain waves again are rolling on, 
But Death walks o'er their glassy crests alone ! 

XXII. 

Ceased is the tempest — and each crystal star 
Looks o'er the riot of the clouds afar, 
Calm in the blue of heaven their fronts they lave, 
Or gaze in loveliness upon the wave, 
Bright mysteries, that stand as sentinels 
Round the pavilion where the Highest dwells. 
The blast, changed to a zephyr, wanders by, 
Piping in joy ; and, o'er the azure sky, 



70 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III 

Floats in its beauty many a snowy cloud, 
That well might seem a spirit in its shroud ; 
While high o'er all, uplifting her dim form, 
The broad round moon looks on the dying storm, 
Silent and calm, like mercy o'er the bed 
Where guilt despairing rolls the restless head. 
Beneath her moans the everlasting deep, 
That like a maniac, whom no bonds can keep, 
Has worn at last his stormy soul asleep, 
And, spent by his own struggle, lies at length, 
A fearful thing o'erwrought by giant strength. 

XXIII. 

The morn is up, as fresh and full of mirth 
As the first rosy dawn that bliss'd the earth, 
When, in the warm and shining solitude, 
God hung o'er nature, and pronounced her good. 
The morn is up ! — the young, wild, living morn, 
Treading the clouds to mist in playful scorn, 
Waving her sunny sceptre through the trees, 
Spreading her golden tresses on the breeze, 
Shaking her sparkling wings o'er mount and stream — 
But there are none to hail her cheerful beam ! 
Last night has been a fearful night : the wave 
Hath proved to many a manly heart a grave : 



Canto III. THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 7 1 

A gallant vessel drifted on its brow 

Last evening through the storm — where is she now ? 

Ask the wild wind, that yet is heard afar 

Retiring slowly from his watery war ; 

Ask the rude surge, that dashes on the shore 

Of yon bleak island, and its dreary roar, 

With voice of death, alone will make reply, 

" Beneath our depths a hundred heroes lie !" 

XXIV. 

Beneath a spreading palm, that overhung 
A dull grey cliff, and to the midnight sung, 
Lay two fair forms upon the shining beach, 
Their long dark tresses yet within the reach 
Of the young billows, rippling o'er the shells, 
Which strew the sand where desolation dwells, 
Above them tower'd black everlasting blocks 
Of herbless granite — and amongst the rocks, 
Worn with the surge, and shrunk by summer's ray, 
The wreck of many a vanish'd century lay — 
The spoil of fleets — the moss of ages, dark 
Wreathed round the ribs of many a stranded bark ; 
Shells of a thousand forms, amid the bloom 
Of ocean weeds, — and many a wild-bird's plume ; 



72 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

And chalky bones, the shroudless wrecks of man, 

Glitter'd in thick confusion to the sun, 

Through which the green snake and the lizards rife 

Crawl' d in the lazy luxury of life. 

There, on the fringes of that naked strand, 

With others stretch'd in silence o'er the sand, 

Lay two as blighted as the autumn leaf — 

Young Isidora and her roving chief! 

They lie apart upon the ocean's verge, 

Their garments heaving with the heaving surge ; 

And round them, in the blue and lifeless air, 

Is many a swarthy face and bosom bare, 

Defiance still upon each lip and brow, 

Their latest look — it cannot alter now ! 

And see the wild birds from their eyrie spring, 

And screaming flap o'er them their heavy wing, 

View the pale bosoms with a greedy eye, 

And whoop, and hover in the misty sky ! 

These hearts were bold — but, ah ! they cannot scare 

Spoilers like you — no, — ye may fatten there, 

For ZarifF and his wave-borne mates are gone — 

'Tis only dust that ye can feed upon ! 

END OF THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 



THE FIRST POET. 



THE FIRST POET. 



THE INVOCATION. 



Come, Solitude, divine inspirer, come ! 
And, from thy misty tabernacle, breathe 
Thy melancholy and sublime array 
Of mighty images around my soul, 
Such as attend thee at the dead of night 
In the far silent wilderness, where thou, 
Midst storms, and rocks, and clouds, and cataracts, 
Hast piled in mute sublimity thy throne. 
Dread spirit ! who, enshrined in darkness, sits 
On the storm-paved and sun-defying ice 
Of TenerifFe or Andes, mid the clouds 
Borne from the far Atlantic — Mystic power ! 

e 2 



76 THE FIRST POET. 

Who breathes and walks the universe, when men 

Lie in their graves — Come from thy Runic dome, 

Built by the polar hurricane, from out 

The world-engulfing ice; where continents, 

Frozen like marble, lie upon the sea, 

Where dash'd like atom 'gainst the spiry cliffs 

Dies the strong whale, or vainly strives to break 

The bars that wedge him in upon the deep — 

Those icicles like mail-clad men who charge 

The huge intruder, if he dares to force 

His way through their mute realms — or leave thy home 

Among the dark Canadian forests, where 

Twilight hath ever hung amid the trees, 

Where time is strangled in the leafy gloom, 

And life is humbled to the shining snake, 

Crawling like fire amid their net- work — Come 

In the wild whirl of the tornado — Come 

From thy far pyramids of dazzling sand, 

Those oceans without floods, those shining seas 

Of dusty waves, where the brown Arab sits 

Beside his war-horse in the heat of noon, 

Alone and statue-like — or leave thy home 

Where Zara stretches like a wither'd world 

From the Atlantic to the sea of Ind, 



THE INVOCATION. 77 

Seasonless, herb] ess, lifeless, and burn'd up ; 

Deserts that look like matter ere the voice 

Of God was heard to bid creation live ; 

Where even the winds seem pillow'd 'neath the sun, 

And the hot air feels rotting as if death 

Hung o'er it with his mute eternity ; 

No yell, no scream, no rustle in the air 

Of wandering bird ; no shadow on the sand, 

Save the dull checker'd twilight of the clouds, 

That nightly muster up among the stars 

Or lowering hang like night-mare o'er the sleep, 

The ghastly slumber, of the wilderness : — 

In thy sublime dominions, never comes 

The shadow of a change, — that fickle nymph 

Whom men call Fortune, with her airy gifts 

And April glories, blinds no kingly fool ; 

Here rules no Alexander, in his pride 

Of mad ambition, reveling o'er the globe 

With slaves and drunkards ; here no Ceesar writes 

In venal page, that he, in might of soul, 

Slew twice three million men to reign an hour ; 

Here no Napoleon, fortune's wilder child, 

Writhes 'neath the lowest spoke of all her wheel, 

Now covering empires with his hosts, and then, 



78 THE FIRST POET. 

Like common cut-throat, striking for his life, 

And tiger -like, expiring at the last 

Within his savage cage amid the sea. 

The time is past for chiefs and Nimrods now 

To grasp and rule the solitary world ! 

Ye sceptred despots of the universe ! 

There is a lesson chronicled by time — 

A tale not soon forgotten ; pause and know 

What towers too high attracts the lightning's blade, 

From out its scabbard of the gather d clouds — 

Learn that a mighty people, gently used, 

Will roll on like a river, fattening all 

The banks round ; but if oppression mar 

The mighty torrent, it o'er-leaps all bounds, 

And with resistless and destroying sway, 

Sweeps thrones and mitres, institutes and crowns, 

And all distinctions to the very dust. 

Spirit of the existing world ! who lovest 

To sit among the pyramids, and dream 

Of old annihilated empires lost 

With all their millions in the night of years ; 

Who lov'st to lean o'er grey walls, and the tombs, 

The massy stones, the fragments, and the shafts 



THE INVOCATION. 79 

Of pillars prostrate, obelisks o'erturn'd ! — 
Come from the column'd vale, where ancient Nile 
Pours down his desert waters to the sea, 
From the long misty colonnades of Thebes, 
Where frown the history of a perish'd world, 
Sculptured in living granite, — nameless tales, 
Dead languages, and creeds, and mysteries, 
Wild giant thoughts hew'd on gigantic piles, 
Where in rude hieroglyphics, perish'd minds 
Look out from the grey obelisks and walls, 
And the strange zodiac on the temples tells, 
In mystic and forgotten characters, 
The science of dead empires — savage heaps, 
Reared with the blood, the treasure, and the tears 
Of shackled millions now in mockery, 
Without their mottoes, standing o'er the dead : 
The Pharaohs, Ptolemies, and Ceesars, with 
The wreck of forty centuries, sleep on 
In dim forgetful ness, while o'er their graves 
The Memphian pyramids and Theban tombs 
Tower o'er their ashes, and in silent scorn 
Point only to the tyrants at their feet. — * 

* Speaking of the ruins of Thebes, a modern traveller says — u You 
see them as Cambyses saw them, when he stopped his chariot 



80 THE FIRST POET. 

And last of all, though not thy least domain, 
Come from the hills of Scotland, girdled with 
Their sea of heather, where the hero's cairn, 
The stone of other years, looks lonely out 
Grey in the silent sunshine ! — Spirit, come 
From mine own glen of hoar sublimity, 
Where thou and the wild eagle sit alone, 
In misty grandeur on the cliffs of Col ! 
Come, then, fair mother of each lonely thought. 
Come from thy lonely haunts, and be my guide ! 
Thou wert the parent — the bright principle 
That fired the spirit of the earliest bard, 
And still thy fairy harp and wand control 
Thy kindred bosoms in these latter days. 



wheels, and the Persian war-cry ceased before these mysterious 
remains of an older world. — In the locality you cannot err, you are 
amid the ruins of heathen temples, temples which the Roman came, 
as you come, to visit and admire, and the Greek before him. And 
you know that the priest and king, lord and slave, the festival throng, 
and the solitary worshipper, trode for centuries where you do ; and 
you know that there have been the crowding flight, the neighing of 
the war-horse, and the shout as of a king among them, all on this 
silent spot ; the ruins are neither grey nor blackened, — like the bones 
of man they seem to whiten under the sun of the desert ; here is no 
lichen, no moss, no wall-flower, or wild fig-tree to conceal their 
deformities ; no ; all is the nakedness of desolation, the colossal skele- 
ton of giant fabrics, standing in the unwatered sun, in solitude and 
silence." 



THE FIRST POET. 



i. 

Life ! thou mysterious principle, whose links 
Stretch on from star to star, from world to world, 
Upheld through all eternity, by Him, 
The quickening spirit, whose creative word 
Illumes a universe, or rears a flower : 
Life ! thou art endless — thy magnetic chain 
Stretches athwart infinity, and joins 
Systems the most remote, and our old globe 
Is but the wreck of a far nobler sphere 
Struck into chaos, many a thousand years 
Before creation bore the print of man. 
And if we trust earth's womb, that perish'd orb 
Was peopled by a godlike brotherhood, 
A vast and glorious world — the smallest isle, 

e 3 



82 THE FIRST POET. 

Which slumber'd in its least distinguished sea, 
O'ermatch'd our star in magnitude — its hills, 
Ten times the stature of the Andes, tower'd, 
Clad with their leagues of rolling forests, where 
Wander'd a million happy herds, and things 
To which the Mammoths of our ancient earth 
Were cubs in pettiness, — and mighty birds, 
Which could have struck the proudest eagles down 
With one wild flap of their tremendous wings, — 
And old enormous towers and battlements, 
Outmeasuring Babel, or the hoary piles 
Built by the hardy Gainites — and long 
Beneath the voice of its majestic laws, 
Roird that fair planet, till the word of God 
Bade ruin crush it into chaos — then 
Its sinking continents and strangled seas 
Became a sunless mass, from which our globe. 
As ebb'd the tide of dark confusion back, 
Felt through her slimy breast the germs of life, 
And at Jehovah's bidding leapt a world. 
Such mysteries fired the earliest bard — who saw 
The buried secrets of an age gone past. 
The world to him was young and beautiful ; 
He loved the mountain and the wilderness, 



THE FIRST POET. 83 

The sun in his high glory, the pale moon, 

The floating stars, and in the voiceless depth 

Of sable night, he made his lonely heart 

Familiar with the signs and mysteries 

Of the great living universe ; he loved 

The deep dark ocean in its wasteful strength, 

And, oh ! more than them all, the laughing flowers, 

Those rosy children of the morning, charm'd 

His melancholy soul. He was the child 

Of freedom, rear'd upon the sunny hills. 

Each change that cross'd his mighty Mother's brow, 

Whether of sun or storm, came on his heart 

Like gushing music, and he fed his soul 

With rapture borrow'd from creation's beauty. 

His mind was but one echo of the sounds 

And scenes that taught him the wild rudiments 

Of the sweet lesson, — and his spirit glow'd, 

And burn'd, and ripen'd in the solitude, 

A better portion of the elements. 

He was a son of song — he loved to sit 

And dream 'mid the unpeopled wilds, and gaze 

On their grey summits, glittering in the sun. 

Man's haunts were not for him, his mind outshone 

Their little bounds, — and made eternity 



84 THE FIRST POET. 

A field to revel in, and in its strength 
Communion held with high and holy things — 
Those worlds unnumber'd that, like icicles, 
Hang shining 'mid the dark and mountainous clouds 
Brilliant and beautiful. 

II. 

His dwelling was the waste, but such green wastes 
As blossom by the rivers of the east ; 
He made his arbour in an ancient wood, 
Whose trees, coeval with the birth of time, 
Lifted their giant crests, and wildly wove 
The atmosphere to twilight, where each bird 
That charms the ear of wandering echo made 
The air melodious with their songs of love. 
There would the lone one sit, and eye the sun 
Shine through the net- work of the clustering leaves, 
Like the far burnish'd ocean waves — and he 
Has seen at eve the blue and ghostlike moon 
Rise o'er the desert, and ascend the clouds, 
While his green temple, with its fretted work 
Of trunks, and buds, and branches, o'er her face 
Drew their soft dancing bars, through whose wild folds 
She look'd like beauty in captivity. 



THE FIRST POET. && 

His midnight grotto was a cave, which seem'd 

The shatter'd tomb of some old earthquake, dug 

By the old miner Time, at nature's dawn. 

It needed not the aid of sun or moon — 

A thousand constellations glitter'd there, 

Such as night kindles in the womb of earth, 

Diamond, and chrysolite, and radiant gem ; 

Pure as the stainless ether, drooping low 

From the blue roof, like icy willows, hung 

Clear sparry columns, twining their huge arms 

Round the hoar skeletons of buried trees 

Congeal'd to stone, and towering like the shafts 

Of some cathedral, while beneath their arch, 

Reflecting all, as ocean does the stars 

When night shows her blue thousands, roll'd a stream 

Cold as the moonshine, filling the wide vault 

With all the rapture and the soul of sound. 

III. 

The songs, that once had gladden'd on their hills 
The youth of earth's first summer, were no more ; 
They had departed when the beauty pass'd 
From the devoted world, and since the flood, 
No strain danced through the dreaming atmosphere. 



86 THE FIRST POET. 

Long sigh'd the bard for tones to imitate 
The gentle melodies that ever rung 
O'er the mysterious universe. One eve, 
He sat in silence on an aged stone, 
Half hid among the weeds- — the pedestal 
Of some old pillar, which had been set up 
O'er the first ashes of ambition, — sweet 
The little flowers were raising their shut eyes, 
Parting their ivory lips in thankfulness, 
For the soft amour of the playful breeze. 
He sat him on the stone ; and o'er him sung 
A tree, whose skeleton branches oft had made 
Wild music in the midnight ; evening's beams 
Fell in a golden shower upon the grass ; 
The clouds reposed above him, and the sun 
Sat at his western window, gazing out 
Upon the glorious ocean and the hills. 
One star was up, and far away the moon 
Look'd breaking in upon the balmy air. 

IV. 

He sat, when, lo ! the nightingale arose, 
And chanted from her bower of sleeping clouds 
A hymn of joy and gratitude to heaven ; 



THE FIRST POET. ^7 

The minstrel heard the music, and he own'd 

The bird his master ; still his spirit pined 

To rival the wild songster. In his cave, 

He listen'd to the viewless winds at night, 

Singing their melody along the sea ; 

And oft he sat when twilight held her harp 

To the calm zephyr, or when thundering by 

The ruffian tempest struck the shrieking strings, 

And crush'd its thousand melodies at once 

To one wild burst of grandeur ; — the far deep 

Lent him its voice of majesty — he join'd 

The soft, the tender, the magnificent, 

And, with a spirit fitted thus to feel 

And mingle with the glorious mysteries 

Of earth and earth's, he made the earliest harp. 

V. 

Again he sat with his wild instrument, 
Upon the stone ; his rival far above 
Was singing in the moonshine, when his lyre 
Broke on her startled ear ; she stopp'd, — he sung ; 
She paused, then tried to drown or imitate 
His music, but in vain was all her skill. 
Worn with the struggle, she at last dropp'd down 



88 THE FIRST POET. 

Upon the poet's bosom ; her poor heart 
Was broken, music mightier than her own 
Had snapp'd its cords, — one flutter of her wings, 
And one wild note of pride and agony, 
Proclaim'd the poet's triumph — but her fate 
Wrung the first tears from his young eye, which fell 
The meed of pity on his rival's breast. 

VI. 

Years came — and pass'd — and perish'cl in the gulf 
Of dark eternity — and still he sung 
In his wild Eden, yet he often sigh'd 
To see the world — its ruin'd cities — and 
Pause o'er the faded wonders of the past. 
He often sigh'd, while gazing on the sky, 
The blue and boundless universe of space, 
That girdled his green sphere — and as the day 
Sank o'er the mountains, he would wish to be 
Travelling the shining deserts that reposed 
Beneath its parting glory. He was one 
Whom nature in his infancy had led 
To freedom's altar rear'd among the hills. 
He left his lone retreat, roam'd o'er a world 
Fresh from its Maker's glory, where the sun 



THE FIRST POET 



89 



In its young laughing childhood smiled upon 
Woods, mid whose rank luxuriance giant time 
Had left no foot-prints, — as he wandered on, 
Around his lonely tread, the warrior winds, 
Those wanderers of the universe, with harp 
Of desolation, sung their mountain dirge, 
And the old eagles, lordly and alone, 
Plunged through the floating wilderness of clouds. 
Around him rose the sharp and jagged steeps, 
With all their thousand forests waving wide 
O'er crags, and dazzling cataracts that drowned 
The wild ear of the listening wind — the pines 
Wreath'd round their granite cliffs, like distant sea 
Swung in their depth of darkness, and the snow 
On the blue cutting summits glancing lay, 
Like water sleeping 'neath the dazzling sun. 
Amid the old gray icicles, huge oaks 
Heaved up their rent and ghastly ribs to heaven, 
Like grizzly spectres mid the clouds, and shook 
Their tresses o'er the chasms ; others lay 
Shattered in all their rude fantastic strength, 
Swept from their slatey thrones, and wildly hurl'd 
Impetuous down the adamantine gulfs 
Of the black yawning desert. — All bespoke 



90 THE FIRST POET. 

The wreck of past existence ; yet they charm'd 

His spirit. — In his journeying, he came 

Where stood a city of the fated tribes 

Of earth's old dwellers, ere the deluge rose 

A wilderness of ruin, mountains piled 

Of fallen domes wreathed round with ocean weeds. 

VII. 

'Twas sunset when that child of song approach'd 
The desolated capital — the day 
Was sinking down in glory to the west, 
Tinging the marble on the highest ridge 
Of the old palaces, while the black grass, 
Sown by the wandering winds among the stones, 
Waved dark along the shining atmosphere. 
'Twas sunset, but unclouded in the east, 
The stars were rising, and their silver light 
Streamed through the high and azure rents of ruin. 
The Poet singled out a dome whose front 
Rose like a mount unleveli'd o'er a cloud 
Of wild green palms, that seem'd to sing their song 
Of solitude to charm the fiery waste. 
He reached the hall where once a monarch reign' d, 
Where blocks of granite, huge and measureless, 



THE FIRST POET. 91 

Bore the vast twilight roof that almost seem'd 
The distant vault of heaven, so broad and high 
The mighty arch hung yawning. On he went 
Treading the clammy floor with solemn foot, 
And starting at his own unearthly sound, 
The first that had for seasons echoed there. 
High on an ivory throne o'erlaid with gold, 
Sat the last skeleton, whose withered arm 
Had ruled the famish'd nations — on his brow 
Gleam'd the tiara, and the sceptre lay 
As newly from his bony fingers dropp'd ; 
Vainly it sparkled on the marble slabs 
Of the grass-cover'd pavement, where the dead 
Lay stretched in masses round the fearful throne, 
Where sat the royal mummy, as if they, 
Smote by the plague before the deluge came, 
Had perish'd in the act of adoration, 
Each with his bare brow bent upon the floor, 
Like worshippers, within the hall of death 
Kneeling before their monarch on his couch. 
And well that sceptred skeleton beseem'd 
The king of terrors, for his fleshless skull 
Look'd bare and brown beneath his cap of gold ; 



72 THE BRIDAL NIGHT. Canto III. 

And chalky bones, the shroudless wrecks of man, 

Glitter'd in thick confusion to the sun, 

Through which the green snake and the lizards rife 

Crawl'd in the lazy luxury of life. 

There, on the fringes of that naked strand, 

With others stretch'd in silence o'er the sand, 

Lay two as blighted as the autumn leaf — 

Young Isidora and her roving chief! 

They lie apart upon the ocean's verge. 

Their garments heaving with the heaving surge ; 

And round them, in the blue and lifeless air, 

Is many a swarthy face and bosom bare, 

Defiance still upon each lip and brow, 

Their latest look — it cannot alter now ! 

And see the wild birds from their eyrie spring, 

And screaming flap o'er them their heavy wing, 

View the pale bosoms with a greedy eye, 

And whoop, and hover in the misty sky ! 

These hearts were bold — but, ah ! they cannot scare 

Spoilers like you — no, — ye may fatten there, 

For ZarifF and his wave-borne mates are gone — 

'Tis only dust that ye can feed upon ! 

END OF THE BRIDAL NIGHT. 



THE FIRST POET. 



THE FIRST POET. 



THE INVOCATION. 



Come, Solitude, divine inspirer, come ! 
And, from thy misty tabernacle, breathe 
Thy melancholy and sublime array 
Of mighty images around my soul, 
Such as attend thee at the dead of night 
In the far silent wilderness, where thou, 
Midst storms, and rocks, and clouds, and cataracts, 
Hast piled in mute sublimity thy throne. 
Dread spirit ! who, enshrined in darkness, sits 
On the storm-paved and sun-defying ice 
Of Teneriffe or Andes, mid the clouds 
Borne from the far Atlantic — Mystic power ! 

e 2 



7" THE FIRST POET. 

Who breathes and walks the universe, when men 

Lie in their graves — Come from thy Runic dome, 

Built by the polar hurricane, from out 

The world-engulfing ice; where continents, 

Frozen like marble, lie upon the sea, 

Where dash'd like atom 'gainst the spiry cliffs 

Dies the strong whale, or vainly strives to break 

The bars that wedge him in upon the deep — 

Those icicles like mail-clad men who charge 

The huge intruder, if he dares to force 

His way through their mute realms — or leave thy home 

Among the dark Canadian forests, where 

Twilight hath ever hung amid the trees, 

Where time is strangled in the leafy gloom, 

And life is humbled to the shining snake, 

Crawling like fire amid their net- work — Come 

In the wild whirl of the tornado — Come 

From thy far pyramids of dazzling sand, 

Those oceans without floods, those shining seas 

Of dusty waves, where the brown Arab sits 

Beside his war-horse in the heat of noon, 

Alone and statue-like — or leave thy home 

Where Zara stretches like a wither'd world 

From the Atlantic to the sea of Ind, 



THE INVOCATION. 77 

Seasonless, herbless, lifeless, and burn'd up ; 

Deserts that look like matter ere the voice 

Of God was heard to bid creation live ; 

Where even the winds seem pillow'd 'neath the sun, 

And the hot air feels rotting as if death 

Hung o'er it with his mute eternity ; 

No yell, no scream, no rustle in the air 

Of wandering bird ; no shadow on the sand, 

Save the dull checker'd twilight of the clouds, 

That nightly muster up among the stars 

Or lowering hang like night-mare o'er the sleep, 

The ghastly slumber, of the wilderness : — 

In thy sublime dominions, never comes 

The shadow of a change, — that fickle nymph 

Whom men call Fortune, with her airy gifts 

And April glories, blinds no kingly fool ; 

Here rules no Alexander, in his pride 

Of mad ambition, reveling o'er the globe 

With slaves and drunkards ; here no Csesar writes 

In venal page, that he, in might of soul, 

Slew twice three million men to reign an hour ; 

Here no Napoleon, fortune's wilder child, 

Writhes 'neath the lowest spoke of all her wheel, 

Now covering empires with his hosts, and then, 



78 THE FIRST POET. « 

Like common cut-throat, striking for his life, 

And tiger-like, expiring at the last 

Within his savage cage amid the sea. 

The time is past for chiefs and Nimrods now 

To grasp and rule the solitary world ! 

Ye sceptred despots of the universe ! 

There is a lesson chronicled by time — 

A tale not soon forgotten ; pause and know 

What towers too high attracts the lightning's blade, 

From out its scabbard of the gather'd clouds — 

Learn that a mighty people, gently used, 

Will roll on like a river, fattening all 

The banks round ; but if oppression mar 

The mighty torrent, it o'er-leaps all bounds, 

And with resistless and destroying sway, 

Sweeps thrones and mitres, institutes and crowns, 

And all distinctions to the very dust. 

Spirit of the existing world ! who lovest 

To sit among the pyramids, and dream 

Of old annihilated empires lost 

With all their millions in the night of years ; 

Who lov'st to lean o'er grey walls, and the tombs, 

The massy stones, the fragments, and the shafts 



THE invocation: 79 

Of pillars prostrate, obelisks o'erturn'd ! — 
Come from the column'd vale, where ancient Nile 
Pours down his desert waters to the sea, 
From the long misty colonnades of Thebes, 
Where frown the history of a perish'd world, 
Sculptured in living granite, — nameless tales, 
Dead languages, and creeds, and mysteries, 
Wild giant thoughts hew'd on gigantic piles, 
Where in rude hieroglyphics, perish'd minds 
Look out from the grey obelisks and walls, 
And the strange zodiac on the temples tells, 
In mystic and forgotten characters, 
The science of dead empires — savage heaps, 
Reared with the blood, the treasure, and the tears 
Of shackled millions now in mockery, 
Without their mottoes, standing o'er the dead : 
The Pharaohs, Ptolemies, and Caesars, with 
The wreck of forty centuries, sleep on 
In dim forgetful ness, while o'er their graves 
The Memphian pyramids and Theban tombs 
Tower o'er their ashes, and in silent scorn 
Point only to the tyrants at their feet. — * 

* Speaking of the ruins of Thebes, a modern traveller says — a You 
see them as Cambyses saw them, when he stopped his chariot 



SO THE FIRST POET. 

And last of all, though not thy least domain, 
Come from the hills of Scotland, girdled with 
Their sea of heather, where the hero's cairn, 
The stone of other years, looks lonely out 
Grey in the silent sunshine ! — Spirit, come 
From mine own glen of hoar sublimity, 
Where thou and the wild eagle sit alone, 
In misty grandeur on the cliffs of Col ! 
Come, then, fair mother of each lonely thought, 
Come from thy lonely haunts, and be my guide ! 
Thou wert the parent — the bright principle 
That fired the spirit of the earliest bard, 
And still thy fairy harp and wand control 
Thy kindred bosoms in these latter days. 



wheels, and the Persian war-cry ceased before these mysterious 
remains of an older world. — In the locality you cannot err, you are 
amid the ruins of heathen temples, temples which the Roman came, 
as you come, to visit and admire, and the Greek before him. And 
you know that the priest and king, lord and slave, the festival throng, 
and the solitary worshipper, trode for centuries where you do ; and 
you know that there have been the crowding flight, the neighing of 
the war-horse, and the shout as of a king among them, all on this 
silent spot ; the ruins are neither grey nor blackened, — like the bones 
of man they seem to whiten under the sun of the desert ; here is no 
lichen, no moss, no wall-flower, or wild fig-tree to conceal their 
deformities ; no ; all is the nakedness of desolation, the colossal skele- 
ton of giant fabrics, standing in the unwatered sun, in solitude and 
silence." 



THE FIRST POET. 



i. 

Life ! thou mysterious principle, whose links 
Stretch on from star to star, from world to world, 
Upheld through all eternity, by Him, 
The quickening spirit, whose creative word 
Illumes a universe, or rears a flower : 
Life ! thou art endless — thy magnetic chain 
Stretches athwart infinity, and joins 
Systems the most remote, and our old globe 
Is but the wreck of a far nobler sphere 
Struck into chaos, many a thousand years 
Before creation bore the print of man. 
And if we trust earth's womb, that perish'd orb 
Was peopled by a godlike brotherhood, 
A vast and glorious world — the smallest isle, 

e 3 



^ THE FIRST POET. 

Which slumber'd in its least distinguish'd sea, 
O'ermatch'd our star in magnitude — its hills, 
Ten times the stature of the Andes, tower'd, 
Clad with their leagues of rolling forests, where 
Wander'd a million happy herds, and things 
To which the Mammoths of our ancient earth 
Were cubs in pettiness, — and mighty birds, 
Which could have struck the proudest eagles down 
With one wild flap of their tremendous wings, — 
And old enormous towers and battlements, 
Outmeasuring Babel, or the hoary piles 
Built by the hardy Cainites — and long 
Beneath the voice of its majestic laws, 
Roll'd that fair planet, till the word of God 
Bade ruin crush it into chaos — then 
Its sinking continents and strangled seas 
Became a sunless mass, from which our globe, 
As ebb'd the tide of dark confusion back, 
Felt through her slimy breast the germs of life, 
And at Jehovah's bidding leapt a world. 
Such mysteries fired the earliest bard — who saw 
The buried secrets of an age gone past. 
The world to him was young and beautiful ; 
He loved the mountain and the wilderness, 



THE FIRST POET. 83 

The sun in his high glory, the pale moon, 

The floating stars, and in the voiceless depth 

Of sable night, he made his lonely heart 

Familiar with the signs and mysteries 

Of the great living universe ; he loved 

The deep dark ocean in its wasteful strength, 

And, oh ! more than them all, the laughing flowers, 

Those rosy children of the morning, charm'd 

His melancholy soul. He was the child 

Of freedom, rear'd upon the sunny hills. 

Each change that cross'd his mighty Mother's brow, 

Whether of sun or storm, came on his heart 

Like gushing music, and he fed his soul 

With rapture borrow'd from creation's beauty. 

His mind was but one echo of the sounds 

And scenes that taught him the wild rudiments 

Of the sweet lesson, — and his spirit glow'd, 

And burn'd, and ripen'd in the solitude, 

A better portion of the elements. 

He was a son of song — he loved to sit 

And dream 'mid the unpeopled wilds, and gaze 

On their grey summits, glittering in the sun. 

Man's haunts were not for him, his mind outshone 

Their little bounds, — and made eternity 



84 THE FIRST POET. 

A field to revel in, and in its strength 
Communion held with high and holy things — 
Those worlds unnumber'd that, like icicles, 
Hang shining 'mid the dark and mountainous clouds 
Brilliant and beautiful. 

II. 

His dwelling was the waste, but such green wastes 
As blossom by the rivers of the east ; 
He made his arbour in an ancient wood, 
Whose trees, coeval with the birth of time, 
Lifted their giant crests, and wildly wove 
The atmosphere to twilight, where each bird 
That charms the ear of wandering echo made 
The air melodious with their songs of love. 
There would the lone one sit, and eye the sun 
Shine through the net- work of the clustering leaves, 
Like the far burnish'd ocean waves — and he 
Has seen at eve the blue and ghostlike moon 
Rise o'er the desert, and ascend the clouds, 
While his green temple, with its fretted work 
Of trunks, and buds, and branches, o'er her face 
Drew their soft dancing bars, through whose wild folds 
She look'd like beauty in captivity. 



THE FIRST POET. && 

His midnight grotto was a cave, which seem'd 

The shatter'd tomb of some old earthquake, dug 

By the old miner Time, at nature's dawn. 

It needed not the aid of sun or moon — 

A thousand constellations glitter'd there, 

Such as night kindles in the womb of earth, 

Diamond, and chrysolite, and radiant gem ; 

Pure as the stainless ether, drooping low 

From the blue roof, like icy willows, hung 

Clear sparry columns, twining their huge arms 

Round the hoar skeletons of buried trees 

Congeal'd to stone, and towering like the shafts 

Of some cathedral, while beneath their arch, 

Reflecting all, as ocean does the stars 

When night shows her blue thousands, roll'd a stream 

Cold as the moonshine, filling the wide vault 

With all the rapture and the soul of sound. 

III. 

The songs, that once had gladden'd on their hills 
The youth of earth's first summer, were no more ; 
They had departed when the beauty pass'd 
From the devoted world, and since the flood, 
No strain danced through the dreaming atmosphere. 



°" THE FIRST POET. 

Long sigh'd the bard for tones to imitate 
The gentle melodies that ever rung 
O'er the mysterious universe. One eve, 
He sat in silence on an aged stone, 
Half hid among the weeds — the pedestal 
Of some old pillar, which had been set up 
O'er the first ashes of ambition, — sweet 
The little flowers were raising their shut eyes, 
Parting their ivory lips in thankfulness, 
For the soft amour of the playful breeze. 
He sat him on the stone ; and o'er him sung 
A tree, whose skeleton branches oft had made 
Wild music in the midnight ; evening's beams 
Fell in a golden shower upon the grass ; 
The clouds reposed above him, and the sun 
Sat at his western window, gazing out 
Upon the glorious ocean and the hills. 
One star was up, and far away the moon 
Look'd breaking in upon the balmy air. 

IV. 

He sat, when, lo ! the nightingale arose, 
And chanted from her bower of sleeping clouds 
A hymn of joy and gratitude to heaven ; 



THE FIRST POET. ^7 

The minstrel heard the music, and he own'd 

The bird his master ; still his spirit pined 

To rival the wild songster. In his cave, 

He listen'd to the viewless winds at night, 

Singing their melody along the sea ; 

And oft he sat when twilight held her harp 

To the calm zephyr, or when thundering by 

The ruffian tempest struck the shrieking strings, 

And crush'd its thousand melodies at once 

To one wild burst of grandeur ; — the far deep 

Lent him its voice of majesty — he join'd 

The soft, the tender, the magnificent, 

And, with a spirit fitted thus to feel 

And mingle with the glorious mysteries 

Of earth and earth's, he made the earliest harp. 

V. 

Again he sat with his wild instrument, 
Upon the stone ; his rival far above 
Was singing in the moonshine, when his lyre 
Broke on her startled ear ; she stopp'd, — he sung ; 
She paused, then tried to drown or imitate 
His music, but in vain was all her skill. 
Worn with the struggle, she at last dropp'd down 



88 THE FIRST POET. 

Upon the poet's bosom ; her poor heart 
Was broken, music mightier than her own 
Had snapp'd its cords, — one flutter of her wings, 
And one wild note of pride and agony, 
Proclaim'd the poet's triumph — but her fate 
Wrung the first tears from his young eye, which fell 
The meed of pity on his rival's breast. 

VI. 

Years came — and pass'd — and perish'd in the gulf 
Of dark eternity — and still he sung 
In his wild Eden, yet he often sigh'd 
To see the world — its ruin'd cities — and 
Pause o'er the faded wonders of the past. 
He often sigh'd, while gazing on the sky, 
The blue and boundless universe of space, 
That girdled his green sphere — and as the day 
Sank o'er the mountains, he would wish to be 
Travelling the shining deserts that reposed 
Beneath its parting glory. He was one 
Whom nature in his infancy had led 
To freedom's altar rear'd among the hills. 
He left his lone retreat, roam'd o'er a world 
Fresh from its Maker's glory, where the sun 



THE FIRST POET 

In its young laughing childhood smiled upon 
Woods, mid whose rank luxuriance giant time 
Had left no foot-prints, — as he wandered on, 
Around his lonely tread, the warrior winds, 
Those wanderers of the universe, with harp 
Of desolation, sung their mountain dirge, 
And the old eagles, lordly and alone, 
Plunged through the floating wilderness of clouds. 
Around him rose the sharp and jagged steeps, 
With all their thousand forests waving wide 
O'er crags, and dazzling cataracts that drowned 
The wild ear of the listening wind — the pines 
Wreath'd round their granite cliffs, like distant sea 
Swung in their depth of darkness, and the snow 
On the blue cutting summits glancing lay, 
Like water sleeping 'neath the dazzling sun. 
Amid the old gray icicles, huge oaks 
Heaved up their rent and ghastly ribs to heaven, 
Like grizzly spectres mid the clouds, and shook 
Their tresses o'er the chasms ; others lay 
Shattered in all their rude fantastic strength, 
Swept from their slatey thrones, and wildly hurPd 
Impetuous down the adamantine gulfs 
Of the black yawning desert. — All bespoke 



89 



90 THE FIRST POET. 

The wreck of past existence ; yet they charm'd 

His spirit. — In his journeying, he came 

Where stood a city of the fated tribes 

Of earth's old dwellers, ere the deluge rose 

A wilderness of ruin, mountains piled 

Of fallen domes wreathed round with ocean weeds. 

VII. 

'Twas sunset when that child of song approach'd 
The desolated capital — the day 
Was sinking down in glory to the west, 
Tinging the marble on the highest ridge 
Of the old palaces, while the black grass, 
Sown by the wandering winds among the stones, 
Waved dark along the shining atmosphere. 
'Twas sunset, but unclouded in the east, 
The stars were rising, and their silver light 
Stream'd through the high and azure rents of ruin. 
The Poet singled out a dome whose front 
Rose like a mount unlevell'd o'er a cloud 
Of wild green palms, that seem'd to sing their song 
Of solitude to charm the fiery waste. 
He reached the hall where once a monarch reign' d, 
Where blocks of granite, huge and measureless, 



THE FIRST POET. 91 

Bore the vast twilight roof that almost seem'd 
The distant vault of heaven, so broad and high 
The mighty arch hung yawning. On he went 
Treading the clammy floor with solemn foot, 
And starting at his own unearthly sound, 
The first that had for seasons echoed there. 
High on an ivory throne o'erlaid with gold, 
Sat the last skeleton, whose withered arm 
Had ruled the famish' d nations — on his brow 
Gleam'd the tiara, and the sceptre lay 
As newly from his bony fingers dropp'd ; 
Vainly it sparkled on the marble slabs 
Of the grass-cover' d pavement, where the dead 
Lay stretched in masses round the fearful throne, 
Where sat the royal mummy, as if they, 
Smote by the plague before the deluge came, 
Had perish'd in the act of adoration, 
Each with his bare brow bent upon the floor, 
Like worshippers, within the hall of death 
Kneeling before their monarch on his couch. 
And well that sceptred skeleton beseem'd 
The king of terrors, for his fleshless skull 
Look'd bare and brown beneath his cap of gold ; 



92 THE FIRST POET. 

And the pale hands on which the bracelets glitter'd 
Were pointed as in mockery at the dead. 

VIII. 

The bard felt many a vision cloud his brain 
While brooding o'er the mystery of death ; 
He left the old oblivious city, and 
Crossing the mountains, like a bird escaped, 
He traced a river's track, till he had reach' d 
A clime where pastoral life and innocence 
Bloom'd o'er the valleys — there he pitched his tent 
Among the happy shepherds of the land. 
He was their favourite, for he sung of love, 
Such love as bless'd the morning of mankind ; 
He knew nought of oppression — all were free — 
A patriarchal brotherhood ; but soon 
He saw a monster, with the name of king, 
Drive his swart legions o'er the laughing plains 
Where peace and freedom flourish'd — then he felt 
His spirit wither, but he struck his harp, 
Wild and sublimely with a master's hand, 
And sung of liberty ! His drooping friends, 
The fair-hair'd shepherds of the hills, like men 
Starting from slumber, heard his melody ; 



THE FIRST POET. 93 

They buckled on their maiden swords and met 
The despots in their valleys : freedom's child 
Led the young patriots to the battle, and 
His harp, and falchion, taught earth's tyrant first 
The rights of liberty, the power of song ! 

IX. 
Returning from the slaughter of his foes 
An ambush met him, — and the bleeding one 
Was borne in triumph to earth's sceptred scourge, 
The savage hunter of the human race. 
On march'd the chief, revolving in his mind 
The punishment of freedom's earliest bard. 

X. 

Beneath the curtains of departing day 
Sleep the proud palaces of Babylon ; 
And that huge tower, piled at the sunny dawn 
Of the first laughing summer morn that rose 
Upon the fresh green world, when God again 
RolFd back the strangling waters of the flood, 
Heaved high its sable and majestic front 
Far up among the drapery of the clouds. 
The cold blue sky, like an eternity 



94< THE FIRST POET. 

Seem'd swinging high in glory and in light 
Over the realms of time — the beauteous moon 
Walk'd stainless, gilding the high columns, till 
The shafts of marble in the azure air 
Look'd like huge icicles, shot 'mid the stars 
In clear and cold sublimity. The earth 
As time had died, hung smiling 'mid a flush 
Such as the morning wears, when first he walks 
From out his dewy palace in the east. 

XT. 

Such was the hour, that saw the captive bard 
Chain'd in a darksome cell — how different from 
His silver grotto on the mountain side ! 
Nine days have dipp'd their tresses in the sea 
Since he has breathed the dancing air of heaven. 
He had but one companion — his wild harp, 
That friend which taught him in the wilderness 
Spells ne'er to be forgotten, when he roam'd 
Free as the sunbeam o'er the silent hills. 
Now in captivity he struck its cords ; 
The clouds forsook his soul, and with its tone 
The charms of infancy and nature rush'd 
Like dayspring o'er his lone and broken heart. 



THE FIRST POET. 95 

XII. 

There was a captive girl — one like the hind 
Of her own deserts, delicately wild, 
And shy, and timorous, but beautiful 
As daylight breaking o'er the shining crests 
Of the ice-cover'd mountains. She was young, — 
A wild bewitching flower — she was all soul — 
A being such as poets in their dreams 
Would bring on earth : — alas ! she was a slave, 
But slavery's serpent tooth had not gnawn through 
The cords of love which tune the female heart. 
She was a shape of glory, and she moved 
Upon the earth like summer clouds in heaven, 
All life and lightness ; she was form'd for love ; 
Torn from her native land, she felt as one 
Seeking a parent in this cruel world. 
Night was her friend — her gentle spirit kept 
Its vigils in the darkness ; at those hours 
Of solitary silence, oft she heard 
The bard at midnight tune his solemn harp, 
Its echo, floating from the murky cell, 
Crept like a breathing dream upon her brain : 
It came like the sweet music of a shower 



96 THE FIRST POET. 

Dancing along the desert's weary sand, 

Pouring the visions of her early youth 

Like blossoms round the fountain of her soul. 

In ecstasy of spirit, she resolved 

To free the captive for his charm of song. 

She had the power — for beauty is all power — 

To reason with the despot, and she won 

The secret of his low and lonely vault ; 

And when the stars were dreaming in the clouds, 

She sought his bitter dwelling : — lo I he hears, 

Stealing like life along the voiceless vault, 

The gentle echo of her naked foot ! 

She comes — her eye, itself a spirit, flash'd 

On him its immortality of charms, 

And her red torch hiss'd in the dark, and scared 

A group of sleeping bats that screaming rose, 

Beating and flapping 'gainst the horrid roof, 

Rushing from light like spectres of the damn'd, 

XIII. 

Sweet is the voice, and beautiful the feet 
Of him who travels on the mountains, bringing 
Glad tidings to the sorrowful of soul ! 
Oh ! thou art beautiful, thou midnight hour, 



THE FIRST POET. 97 

With all thy stars and glittering zone of worlds ; 

But not so fair as she, who, in the strength 

Of holiest affection, comes to sing 

The song of freedom in the captive's ear ! 

Few words — for, oh ! her beauty needed few, 

To reason with his spirit — they are past, 

He knows her bosom's generous resolve, 

And thrills with more than gratitude ; their hearts 

Are knit with band as sacred and as firm 

As if a century had shed its suns 

Of glory on their nuptials — they depart, 

The first rapt poet and his rosy bride ; 

Wed by the mutual music of the soul, 

'Mid chains and dungeons, hand in hand they go. 

She like the laughing daughter of the morn, 

Leading her bridegroom forward from the dark ; 

Her long unbraided tresses wreath'd her neck 

Like shower of sunshine, falling on the lyre 

Which her young bard had slung. His every sense — 

His heart — his soul spoke in each throbbing pulse ; 

His bright eye, kindled with a lovers fire, 

Feeds on his virgin, who in beauty shone 

Amid her dreams of sorrow, like the sun, 

F 



98 THE FIRST POET. 

The calm and morning sun, when looking out 
Between the blue clouds of a summer shower. 

XIV. 

They tread the vaults, — a low and desolate breeze, 
Like ruin's spirit wailing from the tombs, 
Crept through their windings, strangled in the grasp 
Of the thick stagnant atmosphere ; their way 
Clammy and cold was o'er a heap of bones, 
Whiten'd by age — the shroudless wrecks of those 
Who long had pined in darkness and in chains 
Beneath some tyrant's vengeance, and had died 
Unsepulchred, uncoffin'd, and unknell'd. 
The chill and glittering damps like icicles 
Hung from the roof, and ever and anon 
Fell with a heavy splash upon the dead, 
Or spread in slimy brightness o'er the walls, 
Where stuck the earth-worm and the spider foul, 
And crawl'd each hateful insect — where the bat 
Clung with his shrivell'd wing, or hissing flew 
Like rattling skeleton athwart the gloom ; 
And they could see the dusky lizard shine 
Green 'neath the red tongue of their torch ; the trail 
Of sleepy adders that ne'er saw the moon, 



THE FIRST POET. 99 

Glitter'd like lines of fire, or sharp and shrill 
They heard them hiss through the unburied dead. 
Now, from a broken loophole, they have drank 
The dancing breeze — and on the shining sky 
They gaze in ecstacy. 'Twas hush'd ; — the earth 
Slept cradled in the moonshine ; while the gale, 
Echo's young whispering handmaid, shaded back 
The playful tresses of the amorous clouds 
From the white-bosoni'd moon, that sat unveil'd, 
High 'mid the starry solitudes of night, 
Where silence in his loneliness had spread 
A couch to rest her in the silver air. 
While looking through the bars, an eagle pass'd, 
Floating like messenger between the stars : 
" See, my fair Ion!" cried the enraptured bard, 
" There wanders liberty ! Go, mighty bird, 
Upon thy shining pilgrimage — aw r ay, 
Beautiful rider of the tempest ! thou 
Art far above the tyranny of man ; 
Thy wings are fetterless, and thy glad eye, 
Bright in the spirit of wild freedom, drinks 
Undazzled the pure glory of high heaven ! 
Soar on, bright one ! and show earth's kings that still 
Unfetter'd things are in the shackled world !" 

f 2 



100 



THE FIRST POET. 



XV. 

An opening, form'd by some adventurous slave 
Who sought his liberty, now welcom'd them ; 
Long years had spun a veil of trunks and leaves 
Over its jaws, through which the twinkling stars, 
The rolling moon, and the blue light of heaven 
Shot like a thousand arrows. They were free 
And lightsome as the fairy-footed fawns 
That sported round them in the moony air ! 
They left the palaces of slaves, and sought, 
Ere morning cail'd the watching starlights in, 
A home among the mountains. With the sun 
They reach'd the wilds, and travell'd till his beam 
Flash'd in its last and far magnificence 
Along the high peaks of the solitude, 
Which lifted their white crests — like lonely isles— 
Amid an ocean blue and limitless. 
Their only kin those calm and gathering orbs, 
That doff their veils of darkness in the night, 
And look unwrinkled from eternity 
Upon their awful beauty — steadfast cliffs, 
Whose visitors are the unbridled winds, 
Brushing in savage glory as they pass 



THE FIRST POET. 101 

The thin snows from their sepulchres of ice. 
Amid those wastes they travell'd ; four bright suns 
Beheld them still among the rocks, beside 
A stream, which lip of man had never quaff 'd, 
Whose mass of crystal waters had sung on 
Amid the desert for a thousand years, 
Unheard by aught save echo in her cave, 
Or the high wandering vulture, when athirst 
Plunging from his dark throne of gather'd clouds, 
To drink its flashing floods and scream in joy. 
They sat upon the grey rocks ; o'er their head 
The forests waved their green and rolling tops 
Like gather'd storms, and down the shatter'd cliffs 
The river rush'd like madness ; the far vales 
Drank in the thunder of its coming — there 
Sat the young pair beneath the willows, like 
The earliest twain of Paradise, ere sin 
Shook down the blossoms from the tree of life. 

XVI. 

It was the bright calm of a summer day, 
A gorgeous eve, when their deserted path, 
Emerging from the mountains, vanish'd in 
A vale like Eden. — 'Twas a lovely hour, 



1^2 THE FIRST POET. 

A sweet warm silent sunset streaming o'er 
A thousand blue and solitary hills. 
Above the parted clouds hung in the sky, 
Like curtains drawn by silence to reveal 
One glorious glimpse of paradise — they saw, 
Like a vast waveless ocean without bound, 
Plains, where a thousand groves of deathless green, 
Laugh'd 'mid the summer air. There dwelt the brave- 
The sons of liberty, who watch'd their flocks 
In the wild flowery wilderness. The sun 
Is sinking as they reach the mighty vale ; 
Low-footed twilight, with her dewy wings, 
Floats dreamlike o'er the velvet face of earth, 
Dropping her tears upon each wither'd flower, 
Like Pity cherishing the broken heart. 
No hum is heard, save where the insect tribes 
Fill with their sleepy song the dreaming air ; 
The buds are folding till some wandering gale 
Opens the bosom of the drooping rose, 
And like a lover from his virgin's cheek 
Steals in that wild embrace one kiss of love. 

XVII. 

Down came the lovely strangers ; they were met 



THE FIRST POET. 103 

By the young shepherds, and their rosy nymphs. 
The poet struck his harp — the first that e'er 
Rang in those valleys ; and he made their tribes 
The willing vassals of his gentle reign. 
This was the golden age — the poet ruled 
Over the shepherd thousands, — his wild lyre 
His only sceptre — all was peace and love. 
The thunder voice of war was never heard ; 
No tyrant ventured to o'erthrow their bowers 
Of happiness, from which the fairest birds 
Made the air vocal with their melody ; 
No despot swept the sky — the speckled snake 
Hiss'd harmless through the dance — no tiger lurk'd 
Among the copse, the messenger of death 
To the young antelope ; — each shepherd sat 
Beside his bower, beneath the spreading palm, 
And worshipp'd God in sunshine ; — all was love, 
A sweet millennium of the passions — and 
Ion, the empress of the sylvan scene, 
Like beauty moved among the beautiful, 
She and her youthful bard ; the joyous pair 
Throned in those happy solitudes, where all 
Blossom'd as nature blossom'd, when mankind 
Roam'd in the wilds of Eden — there no tears, 



1 04 THE FIRST POET. 

No hate, no sorrow, visited those vales ; 

The very prowlers of the desert lost 

Their wonted fierceness when they wander'd near 

The rosy labyrinth. On the smooth green hills, 

A thousand arbours, fashion'd by the sun, 

Of buds and blossoms, held the rural throng. 

There the young poet and his bride were crown 'd 

With diadem more beautiful than gold, 

The blushing coronal of laughing spring, 

Twined by the fairest of the luscious land, 

Thus song first kindled in the soul of man 

The flame of liberty, and bade him meet 

And brave oppression in the teeth of death ; 

And song first bade the shepherds of the hill, 

(Who true to nature, felt its harmony) 

Erect a throne in their green wilderness, 

On which they crown'd the first inspired bard. 

END OF THE FIRST POET. 



POEMS. 



F 3 



TO THE WIND. 

Fleet reveller of the sky ! thy flight is where 

Thought cannot follow thee ; along the verge 

Of the eternal waters, and the bare 

Grey crags where fiercely the high tempests charge, 

x\nd down their chasms the blue glaciers urge ; 

Thou rollest like an earthquake o'er the earth, 

Far traveller of the clouds, with wailing dirge, 

And thou hast said, in thy gigantic mirth, 

The deep shall be my throne; its waves are mine from birth. 

I love to hear, when evening's pinions droop 

Along the uplands, all thy voices — when 

The billowy clouds in their high journey stoop 

And brush the forehead of the mountains, then \ 

My spirit bounds with thee through wood and glen. 

Thou hast roll'd on for ever — and will roll 

When time has sepulchred the hosts of men ; 

Thou art not meeted to one clime or goal, 

Thou may'st arise — rejoice — and travel with the soul. 



108 TO THE WIND. 

The ocean is a play-ground unto thee, 

Its fleets are toys within thy fiery hand, 

When on the glaciers of the mountain sea 

Wrapp'd in thy cloak of clouds thou tak'st thy stand ; 

When sounds thy trumpet o'er the waters grand. 

Thou crushest them like atoms in thine ire, 

In vain they fly — in vain their sails expand — 

They cannot battle with thy vengeance dire, 

Thou stampest on the floods, and hosts at once expire. 

And thou hast whistled through the colonnades 
That skirt the Libyan desert, and the domes 
Of far Palmyra, where from perish'd glades 
The kingly lion, lone and lordly, roams ; 
Like pleasure through those old deserted homes, 
Thou liftest thy shrill voice, as if to call 
Lost faces — and dead mirth, that never comes 
As they were wont to cheer each pillar'd hall, 
Making the wizard Time start from his hoary pall. 

Like gentle mother, in thy calmer hour 
Thou string'st thy airy harp, and from thy cave 
Com'st singing love-songs to each dreaming flower 
That faints in thy embrace, and thou dost wave 



TO THE WIND. 



109 



The grass on many an old, neglected grave 
In Scotia's western glens — where fierce and strong 
I hear thee o'er those ribs of granite rave 
Where Time nursed Ruin ; as thou rid'st along, 
Terror upon the rocks sits listening to thy song. 

His frenzied playmate, thou dost whirl with death 
Athwart the icy highlands of the pole ; 
At thy command the frozen oceans breathe, 
And burst, and thunder round creation's goal ; 
And thou dost rise, and laugh, and leap, and roll, 
And dance, and riot o'er the Indian sea, 
Where every germ of nature teems with soul, 
And thou dost wanton there in sportive glee 
Like libertine at home, — wild, wandering, and free. 

Where is thy cave, almighty wanderer ! where ? 

Does any rein thee on the thunder blast, 

And tie thy pinions to the summer air, 

And on the waveless ocean bind thee fast, 

Or o'er thy giant charger fetters cast ? 

Yes ; He who sends thee through his lone domains 

Can still thy bounding heart while rushing past, 

Yet, as thou dancest o'er thy azure plains, [veins. 

Thou'rt like the blood that runs through nature's million 



HO TO THE WIND. 

For ever circulating — wild and free — 

Rushing and leaping into life and joy. 

The earth may be the skeleton — the sea, 

The mighty heart — the sun, the glorious eye ; 

But thou, careering on, and rolling high, 

Seem'st like the life of nature — all are shook, 

Thrilling with motion, as thou sweepest by ; 

The deep, the clouds, the trees in every nook 

Move with thy moving — peace thy sceptre cannot brook. 

The glorious ocean of the firmament, 

Where sleepeth night, and walks the fair-hair'd day, 

From which the worlds are fashion'd; yet, no rent 

Yawns on its boundless bosom, nor decay ; 

It is the fountain that with gushing play, 

Bellows thee forth, like music through the air ; 

Spirit of space, the sunbeams pave thy way ! 

March on, fleet warrior ! o'er the desert bare, 

But, 'mid the haunts of men — be merciful and spare ! 



THE PILGRIM. 



He had read, in his bright and early hours, 

Of those sunny lands of the east, 
Where summer, on a couch of flowers, 

Spreads for man an endless feast ; 
He left the hearth of his happy home, 

His mother and sister's gentle smile, 
Through the groves of France, and the ruins of Rome, 

He pass'd to the shores of Nile. 

The beautiful of the earth was his, 

He traced with a heaven-enraptured eye 
The lights of creation, whatever is 

In nature's storehouse of mystery- 
Dead walls, grey columns, and nameless graves, 

And mouldering temples sublime and vast, 
And mossy cairns, where the wild-weed waves 

Had a light that like sunshine o'er him pass'd. 



1 12 THE P1LGRIM 

The sky, the deep, all spoke to him 

With a language familiar to his soul ; 
And shapes that to others were cold and dim, 

Around his spirit in light did roll : 
Now the huge grey pyramids o'er his head, 

Stood in their robe of years sublime, 
Rising alone o'er an empire's dead, 

Like the solitary spirits of time. 

But the dreams of his boyish days were by, 

Expiring, he lay on his sandy bed, 
He tum'd and gaz'd on the deep blue sky 

That swung like eternity o'er his head, 
As if he thought each sparkling star, 

Wading the floods of that measureless deep, 
Were the souls of his kindred come from afar, 

To welcome their boy from sleep. 

The fiery sun from its wastes of blue, 
Flash'd so unlike that glorious dome, 

Where a thousand orbs shone laughing through 
The skies of his father's home, 

Where oft in their holy light he had met, 
The one whose spirit was still his own, 



THE PILGRIM. 1 13 

The beautiful being remember'd yet, 

When older and lighter thoughts are gone. 

The day was showering his latest light 

O'er each grey and mystic pyramid, 
As death with his heavy wings of night 

Each ray from the dreamer hid ; 
He raised his dim and feverish glance, 

And tried to gaze on the western sky, 
But an Arab bent o'er his gory lance, 

With his camel, was all that met his eye. 

He died — as low o'er the level sand 

Fell the last sunny smile to its silent rest, 
And his soul pass'd away to his kindred's land 

Like a beam to its own calm west ; 
Ye may picture hope to those that part 

In the yawning jaws of the treacherous main, 
But breathe not of home to an exile's heart, 

For that spell will snap it in twain. 



MY FIRST VOW. 

Ay — she was young, with gentle heart, 
A fairy creature of her kind, 
Whose playful beauty had the art 
To warp love's magic round the mind. 
With brow of light, and eye all soul, 
We met, we loved, our spirits stole 
Into each other, join'd 
With the same fate to bloom or wither, 
Like two flowers folding in each other. 

'Twas eve — and summer, on the wing, 
Wanton'd in music through the bowers ; 
'Twas eve — and the departing spring 
Lay dying on a bed of flowers. 
So beautiful, so hush'd the scene, 
It look'd as death had never been 
Within this world of ours : 
I sat — beside me in the grove 
Smiled my first passion-flower of love. 



MY FIRST VOW. US 

We sat within a summer bower, 

The pale and balmy air 

Fell through the leaves, like silver shower 

Upon her bosom bare, 

Bathing her with its holy light. 

We gazed at once to heaven through night, 

Its thousand stars were there ; 

And, looking on its marble brow, 

We stood, and breathed our earliest vow. 

Those glorious moments seem'd to roll 

As if for us alone, 

To sigh, and converse soul to soul 

While time look'd dreaming on ; 

Methought the moon climb 'd up the sky 

Lighting the dull eternity 

Which round our world was thrown, 

As if to show our vow of love 

Had found a welcome place above. 

From her blue eye she raised the lid 
As in my warm embrace, 
And while one pearly tear-drop slid 
She gazed upon my face. 



A 16 MY FIRST VOW. 

Our hearts were sick, our breath was gone, 
We stood like statues hewn in stone 
Beneath the vault of space ; 
The moon went down, — our visions pass'd, 
Our vow was spotless to the last. 

The last wild pressure of thy hand, 

Shall long remember'd be, 

Thou seraph of a better land, 

My spirit flies to thee ! 

The shaft of fate has broke our vow, 

The oath we pledged is sever'd now, 

Brief was thy bloom for me ; 

The dew of youth scarce touch'd thy cup, 

When death pass'd by and drank it up ! 



A MIDNIGHT IN GLENCOE. 



It is needless to remind the reader that Glencoe, taken as a whole, 
is the wildest vale in Britain. The effect of its first view on my 
mind can never be worn away ; and though years have intervened, 
the appearance of any rent and rugged hill recalls all the rapture 
of my earliest visit to the Highlands, where with my friends, 
H. and M. Cameron, the happiest hours of my life were spent. 



Oh love and night ! let me go forth with thee, 

Thou lovely moon, and hold converse with heaven, 

When all is calm, as though the eye could see 

Through the long vistas of the blue clouds riven 

Up to the throne of God — a charm is given 

From bright undying things, and I have grown 

Part of their elements—the spells are living 

Of solitary earth — she has a tone 

Which my heart drinks and feels familiar with its own. 

Thou look'st as Earthquake in his wandering 

Had coord his fiery bosom in the snow 

Of thy swart mountains, while the sable wing 

Of death had brush'd them, and bade nothing grow 



US A MIDNIGHT IN GLENCOE. 

On their bald heads, where shifting to and fro 

The avalanche has hung, like frozen locks 

Over some giant's adamantine brow, 

While Time has heap'd a thousand granite blocks 

Like solitary cairns, to count the lightning's shocks. 

This is the glorious wilderness, that speaks 

With soul and sound of many a nameless brook ; 

Around me are the huge unpeopled peaks, 

Those high and icy solitudes, that look 

The star-lights in the face ; from every nook, 

Like lightning from their clouds, a thousand rills 

Leap till the petrifying rocks are shook, 

Laughing like madness up among the hills, 

Those wild ones shout, till heaven each airy organ fills. 

Splitting the drap'ry of the highest morns, 

Thy peaks of granite plunge amid the day, 

Glittering like icebergs with their cutting horns, 

They look as Time had tried his first essay 

On them, by sheering out a zigzag way, 

Through which his hurricanes might ride alone, 

And his sharp lightning like wild adders play 

Among their everlasting spars of stone, 

That vault thy black ravine, like arch by demons thrown. 



A MIDNIGHT IN GLENCOK 119 

Oh, now I sit upon the blue cliffs where 

Art ne'er hath smooth'd the frown on nature's face ; 

There is a grandeur in the desert air, 

And on the rocks an old majestic grace. 

This seems for freedom's foot the resting place ; 

These are the wilds where she can spurn control, 

And looking downward on man's slavish race, 

Keep her white arm unshackled, and her soul 

Free from the withering blasts that o'er creation roll. 

Here, where the eagle dwells upon the cone, 

The glittering cliff that mingles with the skies, 

Here bled the injured brave of Caledon, 

The fair-hair'd hunters of the hill ; the sighs 

Of love rose wildly over sever'd ties ; 

Yet, ye oppressors ! ye shall smart amain, 

Your deeds on earth require eternities 

Of punishment, to right the world again — [Vain ? 

When shall the dayspring dawn, when racks and cells are 

The hour of retribution is at hand — 
Eternal Spirit, grant its dawning near ! 
Awake, ye nations, and unsheath the brand ; 
Freedom's first sunrays tinge the hemisphere — 



120 A MIDNIGHT IN GLENCOE. 

Wake from the sleep of many a cloudy year, 
Oppression o'er ye has usurped too long ; 
Woe to earth's tyrants, when their dupes shall hear 
The cry of freedom's sons ! Which is more strong — 
The despot and his slaves — or they that suffer wrong ? 

Time soon will tell, when millions at the dawn 

Of glorious liberty once more will start, 

When in the strength of truth their swords are drawn, 

When the shaft quivers and the despots smart ; 

The all-destroying brand, the venom'd dart 

Which flattery sings from out its sheath, will shiver ; 

The diamond grows in darkness — so the heart 

Shall brighten 'mid its fetters — chains can never 

Obscure the immortal spark — which yet shall shine for ever! 

The nations know their strength ! they laugh to scorn 
The old and rusty trammels of mankind ; 
On slavery's starless night has dawn'd a morn 
No thunder clouds can shadow ; who dare bind 
The God that triumphs in the chainless mind ? 
Ay — who shall crush him ? can a despot mar 
That living essence to the Eternal join'd, 
By slipping from their leash the dogs of war, 
And rolling o'er the world on havoc's purple car ? 



A MIDNIGHT IN GLEXCOE. 121 

The truth has gone abroad, and who shall scare it ? 

Man is the child of freedom, — it hath told 

That though the chain is forged, he should not wear it, 

That the Eternal hath his name enroll'd 

In nature's great equality — though sold 

By his own fears and passions to the vain, 

The ignoble tyrants, who are now grown bold 

To barter men at pleasure, but the reign 

Of the crazed despots end, — and earth laughs out again ! 



THE PERSECUTED. 



A FRAGMENT. 



Ask ye of Bothwell's bloody fight ? 
'Tis vain : I saw it, — but my sight 
Reel'd dizzy with the dreadful glare 
Of lances, flashing in the air : 
I only saw a troubled sea 
Of helms and plumes, — and fearfully 
The banners waving, broad and dun 
Like thunder clouds beneath the sun ; 
I only heard the shock, the shout, 
The charge, the yell, the tug, the rout, 
The awful struggle, — and the close, 
The last embrace of writhing foes ; 
I saw the rushing squadrons join, — 
The bonnets blue, a glorious line, 
The free-born warriors of the hill 
Stand 'mid the charging whirlwind still, 
Till freedom's last expiring groan 
Rung from the brave of Caledon. 



THE PERSECUTED. 

In that wild hour, beneath a shade, 
I o'er my wounded husband pray'd ; 
He lay, the fragment of his brand 
Lock'd firmly in his icy hand ; 
His helm was cleft, his forehead pale, 
And on his breast the riven mail 
Gleam'd redly to the stars, that shed 
Their living glory o'er his head. 

With love, that torture could not shake, 
I join'd him at the fatal stake ; 
It was a bright and summer day 
When his free spirit pass'd away — 
A beauteous moment fit to cast 
The holy visions of the past 
Around his lonely heart, and well 
The martyr proved it ere he fell. 
I saw him turn his glorious eye 
A moment on the shining sky, 
'Neath which his own blue uplands lay 
Where we had spent love's happiest day, 
As if the dream of early hours, 
With all their waters, woods, and flowers, 

g 2 



123 



124 THE PERSECUTED. 

Broke on his soul, — methought there slid 
One tear-drop from his manly lid ; 
But pride to stand, as he had stood 
When grappling in the solitude, 
Dash'd the brief drop that dared to creep 
Across a shrine it durst not steep, — 
I knew my warrior would not weep ! 
He died ! — his latest look was bent 
Up to his God. — A thrilling grace, 
Unearthly though it was, had lent 
A beauteous wildness to his face. 
One grasp of his cold hand — a sigh — 
One roll of his fix'd marble eye — 
And his soul pass'd! — I scorn'd to groan, 
Because our foes look'd coldly on ; 
Tears would have slaked my spirit's thirst, 
But not a single drop would burst. 
I writhed — and gasp'd — a fiery note 
Like death's sharp rattle fill'd my throat ; 
A shiver curdled through my heart, 
Follow'd by that unearthly start, 
Which often in our dreams, like fire, 
Shoots o'er the heart's electric wire. 
But ah ! when the wild hour roll'd by, 
When reason had resumed her mood, 



THE PERSECUTED. 

My throbbing orbs, that long were dry, 
Gush'd feelingly in solitude ! 

I've seen the lonely martyr gasp 
His breath away — my friendly clasp 
Has oped the vizor from his face ; 
I've look'd upon his brow to trace 
The latest streak of life, that brought 
Its shadows o'er that dome of thought. 
But oh ! more dreadful is the end, 
The parting thus of friend with friend, 
When on the stake, the manly heart 
Departs — but not as warriors part. 

'Tis strange we often note our time, 
In this dark world of woe and crime, 
From those keen griefs whose stormy sway 
Sweeps all our lighter thoughts away. 
Three sons were mine, as fair and bright 
As ever bless'd a mother's sight. 
One morn, — I'll ne'er forget, — the breeze, 
Like laughing shower with playful din, 
Fell up among the desert trees 
That drank the living music in ; 



125 



126 THE PERSECUTED. 

The clouds were gather'd high in heaven, 
So sweet the sunny haze was driven, 
Athwart the Highlands far away, 
It seem'd like the first sabbath day 
Held by the earth's young shepherds — we, 
My beautiful, my blooming three, 
Were chanting in the mountain air 
Their perish'd father's holy prayer ; 
Though hunted for our faith divine, 
The solitude had many a shrine 
Where we could kneel, the fern our bed, 
The dark sky all that arch'd our head, 
The stars of God — the eyes that kept 
A watch above us while we slept ; 
Oft have we climb'd the misty height, 
Where the goat sickens at the sight ; 
Ours was the eagle's gory food ; 
He fear'd to guard his callow brood 
When our wild forms and hands impress'd 
A moment's twilight on his nest. 
But death had track'd my boys — the slave 
Dug for my murder'd ones a grave, 
Which late had been their father's tomb ; 
And still his bones were wet and white — 



THE PERSECUTED. 1^7 

I saw them shining in the gloom — 

It was a maddening sight ! 

I felt the sickening stench ; oh God ! 

I shudder'd as they turn'd each sod ; 

My brain spun round ; I could not eye 

Such loved and dear mortality ! 

Oh thou sole Ruler in yon sky, 

Stretch forth thy red right arm, and smite 

Dark Clavers * in his hours of might ! 

Foul tyrant ! 'mid the starry air, 

An eye beheld thee in thy pride ; 

The mothers curse will meet thee there, — 

The orphan's tears, like lava tide 

Shall whelm thy perjured soul with dread ! 

Thy guilt — thy crimes are not forgiven ; 

An empire's ban is on thy head ; 

And the pure blood thine arm hath shed 

Still cries " Revenge !" from heaven ! 

* Among all the blood-thirsty monsters, which the depraved and 
despotic government of Charles II. let loose to hunt down the vir- 
tuous peasantry of Scotland, no one is held in more detestation than 
Graham of Claverhouse — a wretch whose cold-blooded cruelty and 
oppression desolated the lovely straths and glens of the west, till 
they presented the awful picture of a land visited by the plague. 
Of late it has been fashionable to palliate the atrocities of this miser- 
able pander to the wishes of a besotted administration •, but, all that 
genius has done — or can do — will be unable to divest the monster of 
his natural hideousness. 



TO THE CLOUDS. 



Have ye a dwelling, mighty shadows, — and 
Are the cold stars your children ? — or do ye, 
When in your pride of place, your breasts expand, 
Wither within yon dread immensity ? 
Are ye eternal — ever doom'd to be ? 
Or are ye but creations of an hour- — 
Bright phantoms floating o'er a shining sea, 
Fleeting as time, and transient as the flower,' 
Expiring in your high and solitary power ? 

Are ye instinct with spirit, wandering ones ? 

Have ye a heart like man — and do ye weep 

Those countless showers for earth's unguarded sons ? 

Or are ye selfish like the world, to keep 

In your high lands — a palace where to sleep 

Unwither'd by the storms that scour your path ? 

I deem ye such — I've seen your gather 'd heap 

Drifting away before the tempest's wrath, 

Like cold and coward hearts that shrink and fly from death. 



TO THE CLOUDS. 



129 



The sky is your eternity — the sun 
Stands in its solitudes like God — and ye, 
Weary and worn, like spirits one by one 
Travelling from earth for judgment, silently 
Come round his throne, in mourning, or in glee,, 
Ye lone way-faring fugitives of space ! 
Ye move unheeded o'er the sunny sea, 
Like fortune's outcasts driven from place to place, 
By the old famine winds, that glory in the chase. 

Roll on, majestic shapes of glory, roll 

Like a wild savage ocean o'er the sky ! 

Are ye the fleeting mansions of the soul, 

Or are ye but the airy drapery 

Flung round her pinions, as she soars on high ? 

Oh ! ye are lovely in your loneliness, 

Or in your strength, or when apart ye lie 

Far up among the stars, or when ye kiss 

And writhe like madness round each rugged precipice. 

And ye are beautiful, when eve is still, 
And, at the close of a bright summer day, 
Ye hang in glory o'er some Highland hill 
That sleeps amid the sunshine far away ! 

o 3 



1*30 TO THE CLOUDS. 

And when the moonbeams through your masses stray, 

Ye look like marble pavement to some hall, 

Some dome in which the fairy folk might play, 

When the stars light them to their carnival, 

And round their shining bowers the wings of twilight falL 

Vast curtains of the world ! ye often hide 

The far and beauteous wonders of old night, 

And like eternity when you divide, 

Ye show a thousand unknown spheres of light ; 

Space flashes then upon th' astonished sight, 

With all its signs, and orbs, and stars sublime : 

Oh ye unwearied travellers ! your flight 

Is not confined to one lone shore or clime — 

Your path is through all change, all seasons, and all time. 

In vain the lightning flashes o'er your brow ; 

Your dark majestic beauty closes round 

The fiery furrows of his levelling plough, 

And on your swarthy fronts no scar is found ; 

The rattling hurricane can leave no wound, 

Bright and eternal drapery of the sky ! 

In vain his sharp and sulphury arrows bound 

Though ye a moment at his shout may fly, 

Ye rally — charge,— and keep your battle ground on high! 



TO THE CLOUDS. 131 

How bright and beauteous are your curtains cast 
Far o'er the forehead of the deep blue sea, 
Hanging above th' immeasurable vast, 
Like dim worlds floating in eternity, 
So high, so solemn, so majestic — ye, 
When suns have woven summer's showery arch, 
Like conquering chiefs returning back in glee 
With banners streaming in your pride, ye march 
Through that triumphal span where lightnings dare not 
perch ! 

And ye are oft like bowers, — in which the bliss 

Of heaven was centred in the days of old ; 

When, in your wheeling loveliness, ye kiss 

The western ocean's blue and utmost fold ; 

When the great sun looks through your rents of gold, 

Like God on chaos, as on that far morn 

When with his saints he hover'd to behold 

The eternal veil of night asunder torn, 

And the young laughing day amid the darkness born. 



THE WIFE OF ASDRUBAL. 



After the destruction of Carthage, and the treachery of her husband, 
the wife of Asdrubal fled with a few survivors to an inaccessible 
temple, to which they set fire, and while it was burning — the 
heroic Amazon thus addressed the Roman commander : — " I call 
not down curses upon thy head, O Roman, for thou only takest 
the privileges allowed by the laws of war •, but may the gods of 
Carthage, and thou in concert with them, punish yon false wretch, 
who has betrayed his country, his gods, his wife, and his chil- 
dren !" Then addressing her husband; — " Basest of creatures ! 
this fire will presently consume me and my babes ; but thou, too 
shameful general of Carthage, go, adorn the gay triumph of thy 
conqueror, and suffer in the sight of all Rome the tortures which 
thou so justly deservest !" Having pronounced these words, she 
seized her children, and rushed with them into the flames, in 
which action she was imitated by all around her. — Vide Rollin. 



Carthage is level with her subject wave, 
Her thousand palaces are but a grave ; 
Her tribes have perish'd, and within her balls 
No voice is left — no stone upon her walls — 
No song of mirth — no beauty in her bowers — 
No arm to smite, — not one within her towers 
But death in silence sitting on each heap, 
Yawning like labour when about to sleep ; 



THE WIFE OF ASDRUBAL. 133 

'Twas then, beneath the marble colonnade, 

Of a high temple, firm and undismay'd, 

The heroic mother stood and sternly smiled, 

In either hand she held a lovely child, 

Which look'd beside her dark majestic form 

Like two calm sunbeams playing round a storm. 

High curled the flames above her, and they threw 

Athwart her face a more demoniac hue ; 

Pale was her forehead, and her breast was bare, 

And, all unfilleted, her raven hair 

Stream'd o'er her bosom like a sable shroud. 

Her naked arm is flashing 'mid the cloud 

That swathes the temple in its solitude, 

Where, like the Delphic prophetess, she stood, 

Her lips apart — her heart with anguish riven — 

Her spirit-breathing eyeballs turn'd to heaven, 

As if to beckon vengeance to her rock. 

They come — her dark eye brighten'd — as she spoke, 

" We blame ye not, O Romans ! but yon slave — 

May the calm moon that gilds the peasant's grave 

Bless not his ashes ! may his venom'd breath 

Wither within some dungeon, and may death, 

That brother of the broken-hearted, start 

Each horror of perdition round his heart ! 



-^4 the WIFE OF ASDRUBAL. 

Oh god of Carthage, hear my burning prayer ! 

Storms, drink it not, but waft it through the air ! 

Descend, ye bright immortals, on the blast, 

And 'gainst yon wretch your sharpest lightning cast — 

Yon miserable wretch, who could betray 

His country and his gods, to breathe a day, 

To mark unwept his noble kindred's doom, 

And crawl like loathsome reptile o'er their tomb ! 

Oh ! when yon traitor shuts in death his eye, 

Bar 'gainst the demon's flight your glorious sky ; 

May every dream and vision be a spell 

To waft around his soul the fires of hell ! 

May false friends lure him ! May he never find 

One wretch to share with him the load of mind ! 

Promethean-like, may sleepless vultures tear 

His perjured heart doomed ever to despair; 

And may he, writhing 'neatk the fiery chain, 

Pray to his country's gods, but pray in vain ! 

Gaze, traitor ! on the patriots by my side — 

These are the train that best befits thy bride ; 

Gaze on thy children, but they are not thine, 

No chain shall sully one sweet bud of mine. 

I here bequeathe them to the gods — we die, 

Free as our father's spirits in yon sky ; 



THE WIFE OF ASDRUBAL. 135 

We perish — but we sink in our own land 

With not a fetter on one free-born hand. 

Go, wretch ! exist, as vipers do — the scorn, 

The blight of coming ages yet unborn ! 

May hope forsake thee at thy latest hour, 

As thou hast done thy country ! and when lower 

The clouds of death, oh, may thy memory rot — 

A curse, a hissing, a reproach, a blot, 

A thing to hate, a paragon of crime, 

A shadow lowering on the page of time ! 

Go, wretch ! and live in other worlds ; and be 

A fearful wanderer through eternity ; 

A fiend whom even the deepest damn'd will shun, 

And look upon thee as their foulest one ! 

Live in thy solitude, and in thy crime, 

Till the last arrow of exhausted time 

Is launch'd against the universe ; then fall, 

And utter darkness be thy closing pall !" 



THE SAILOR'S FUNERAL. 

'Twas night — with the blue and boundless wave 

The moonshine was sweetly blent, 
As we lowered that lone one to a grave 

In his own wild element. 
He had boldly battled the foe and wreck, 

And his soul had ta'en wing in a cloudless sky ; 
As we mournfully bore him along the deck 

Tears sprang in the sternest eye. 

His funeral dirge to the winds we sung, 

While his dust on the deck remain'd ; 
The standard of Britain above him hung — 

A flag he had never stain'd ! 
No ! oft to the mast he had nail'd, unscared, 

That flag when its friends were lying low, 
As with cutlass he hew'd from its shiver'd yard 

The ensign of the foe. 

He was one for whom we well might grieve, — 
Who nobly did possess 



THE SAILOR'S FUNERAL. 137 

A heart to feel, and a hand to relieve 

A brother in distress ; 
And never were warmer hearts bent o'er 

The dying or the dead, 
Than those who crowded to grasp once more 

The hand whose pulse was fled. 

'Twas night — on the cold and sullen deep 

A dull and desolate breeze 
Came, like a troop of mourners, to weep 

O'er his tomb in the lonely seas. 
So clear was the blue of the wave, we saw 

The print of each swarthy brow 
That look'd o'er the rail of the ship with awe 

To their friend in his braceings now. 

A thousand lights were up in the sky, 

And where their shadows lay, 
Our comrade rock'd with each gusty sigh 

On the deep and sheeted spray. 
The green moonshine, and each icy star 

That waded the depths of space, 
Show'd many an old and honour'd scar 

On his pale and marble face. 



1 38 T HE SAILOR'S FUNERAL. 

'Twas then that our thoughts began to stray 

To his distant home, and the friends of his youth ; 
To his black-eyed Sue, who in life's young day 

Had pledged him her hand of truth. 
One ripple in the cheerless sea — 

One plunge — and our dreams are flown ; 
Like a moment lost in eternity 

The waves suck'd their burden down. 

The dwellers of the deep shall play 

Around his grave in many a crowd, 
And sweep the fleshless bones away 

From their cold oozy shroud. 
But can the storm king on his cloud 

E'er start him from his mansion chill ? 
No ! Death, with voice more deep and loud, 

Has said to all — Be still ! 



LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 



A FRAGMENT. 



One murder made a villain, millions a hero : 
Princes were privileged to kill, and man 
Sanction'd the deed. 

Porte ous. 



-On his scathed brow 



The lava passions of a maniac's soul 

Were chisel'd out like marble ; and his eye, 

Lowering and red like the volcano's torch, 

Reveal'd the burning chaos of his brain. 

He stood amid his tribes of fellow-men, 

Like Lucifer when rising in high heaven, 

And crying out, Rebel ! Upon his head 

Rested that deep and ever damning weight — 

A brother's murder ; and he moved like Cain, 

A fugitive athwart the infant world. 

He felt he stood in solitude, and shrank 

From all that brought the dreams of happier days — 

The blue sky, and the streams of living stars, 

The glorious clouds in their high solitude, 



140 LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 

From whose blue folds the round undying moon 
Look'd like a spirit — all, as death-blast, broke 
Upon his soul, and made her, adder like, 
Coil inward, as if there alone he felt 
Fit feelings to commune with. All his kin 
Were the wild prowlers of the wilderness — 
The tiger and the wolf, the herd that play'd 
In horrid gambols round his giant tread, 
And the huge mammoth, that like mountain roll'd 
Among the pathless woods, the steed that oft 
Bore him the monarch through the savage tribes 
Of his wild empire ; but his favourites were 
The clouds, those wanderers of the universe ; 
For, oh ! they look'd upon their homeless way 
Lonely, unheeded travellers like himself, 
Moving unnoticed through the sunny world, 
Dull shadows in its glory ; — he has stood 
And gazed with rapture on those mighty ones, 
Those lone wayfaring outcasts of the sky, 
That had no shelter from the pitiless storms, 
No parent's arm to shield them ; as he gazed 
He cried to them as brothers, and whene'er 
Their heaving breasts were wounded by the wing 
Of some strong eagle, he has clench'd his hand 



LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 1^1 

And cursed the far intruder. When old night 
Laced on her turban, and, in regal pomp, 
Shook her thick plumage in the face of heaven, 
He loved to see the sick moon, and eclipse 
Place his black fingers on her silver brow, 
Blotting her beauty ; and he smiled to think 
That stars were branded like himself, and felt 
The pang of sorrow on their shining thrones. 

A feast is spread in Enoch's lofty halls — 

Enoch the hunter chief, earth's earliest king — 

A gorgeous feast ! Amid a thousand shafts 

Of rude and mighty columns, that arose 

Like giant net-work in the vast saloon, 

Fell the green moonshine, sliding from the dark 

In dim magnificence along the walls, 

Where hung the savage trophies of the chase, 

Huge clubs, and knotty spears, and rugged skins, 

Torn from the lion or the spotted pard 

By the stern Cainites. In joyous mirth, 

A thousand hunters of the desert sat, 

The strong gigantic warriors of the hill, 

And many a fair-hair'd daughter of the earth, 

Fair as the flowers of Eden, blossom'd there — 



142 ' LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 

The daughters of the fallen, love's first buds, 
Their bright eyes and their shining tresses stream'd 
Like glory o'er the banquet ; and their chiefs 
Felt, though debarr'd from paradise, they still 
Enjoy 'd a portion of its happiness ; 
And from the earliest vintage of the world 
Drank till the spirit, in its dizziness, 
Forgot the doom of man, or, heavier still, 
The curse upon their own devoted tribe. 

'Twas midnight ; and the round and rolling moon 
Stood high among the nations of the stars. 
Beneath her beam, amid the hunters sat 
The solitary one — but sat as bronze, 
With lip unchanging, and his hollow eye 
Like the fierce lurid lightning in the night, 
Betraying the wild tempest of his brain, 
Where murder, like a spectre grim and gaunt, 

Walk'd its remotest chambers. Sleep descends. 

The feast is ended ; and the monarch gives 
AJdnd embrace to all but the accursed, 
Who in his sullenness of spirit stood 
Lowering within a marble niche, like death 
In the green bowers of Eden. Midnight falls, 



LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 143 

Oblivion's wing on earth — Who's by the couch 
Of man's first ruler ? Lamech the denounced I 

The moon, like iceshine, green and luridly 

Fell on the victim and the murderer ; 

Dreadful it was to see the demon bend, 

To mark the blow out by the cold dead light, 

And pace a moment backward from the couch 

For strength to swing the life-destroying blade. 

Now, now it glitters in the moon-lit air — 

Now swift descending like a sunbeam sinks ! 

The mighty monarch burst his chains of sleep, 

Wound, with a dying grasp, his desperate arms 

Around his foeman's neck— awhile they strove 

And fiercely panted in each other's face. 

And every feature, in its last despair, 

Seem'd like a statue's ; — all was dark and wild ; 

The murderer and his victim, and the blade 

Again aloft and quivering for the blow ; 

The struggling feet that beat the slabs ; the arms 

Cracking and twining in their sinewy strength, 

And lock'd like serpents ! Now the deed is done ! 

The sword again is buried in the king — 

Oh ! then there was a pause of all his powers, 



144 LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 

And struggling life stood for a moment still ; 
He heaved no dying groan, but firmly gripped 
The throat of his destroyer — but strove none ; 
He only pierced him with his glazing eye, 
As if he long'd to curse him even in death. 
Lamech soon flung the gory burden off; 
He now had vengeance, and his work was done ! 
Bearing the monarch's crown 9 he measured back 
His pathway through the palace, whose vast halls 
Yawn'd in their dimness round him, only lit 
By a few weary starlights and the moon. 

He fled — and from a mountain looking back 
On the enormous city, he beheld 
Her domes, and battlements, and pyramids, 
And marble columns, that for multitude 
Mock'd, in their giant nakedness, the ranks 
Of alpine forests ; and he heard the curse — 
A people's curse — peal'd after him ; it roll'd 
Like thunder o'er the towers and palaces, 
Swinging in all the depth, the strength, the power, 
The might, the majesty of millions, who 
Cursed the destroyer of an empire's hopes. 
God spared the regicide, who wander'd on 



LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 145 

Among those inland Asiatic peaks 

That mock the clouds in their magnificent 

Fantastic glory — shining in the air 

A world of wavy cones, as if a sea 

In savage grandeur had been turn'd at once 

To marble, and had left its skeleton 

Of billows petrified beneath the sun. 

Now nature's doom was seal'd — the universe 

Rock'd in its winding sheet — the living God 

Had cursed her millions ; and the clouds stood charged 

With oceans in their wombs to strangle life. 

Lamech roam'd on : it was the glorious noon 

Of a deep, silent, solemn, summer day ; 

The sun had caught him in the wilderness, 

And luird him into slumber ; — he reposed 

His giant limbs beneath a huge gray rock 

Upon some ancient grave, and o'er his head 

A solitary palm-tree waved, and sung 

A melancholy ditty on the harp 

Of the warm upland breeze. The dreamer lay 

Hush'd as a child upon his mother earth. 

The daylight sicken'd ; and the evening wind 

Started the sleeper. As he gazed around, 

He shudder 'd, for he knew the grave of Cain ! 

H 



146 LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 

That heap had been his pillow — fitting couch 
For the first regicide ! But, hark ! a roll ! 
The thunder has awaken'd — and the rain 
Comes, as if God struck nature's harp, and crush'd 
Its music out in one wild sound ; the waste 
Drinks in its full, then rolls a shining sea ; 
The beasts of prey scud o'er the sand, and scale 
The jagged rocks, and millions of high birds 
Descend upon the yet untrodden hills, 
And darken the gray ice, which ne'er before 
Was shadow'd by aught living. Now it groans 
With earth's roused tribes — ay, the eternal frost 
Cracks with the clinging hands and struggling feet 
Of strong despair. 

That savage wanderer — 
Where scowl'd the demon, when he saw that death 
Had mingled with the elements ? — He climb'd 
A hoar volcano — 'twas a dreadful sound 
To hear the rain like cataracts rushing down 
The roaring crater, and the cliffs of snow, 
Which cased the fire like waves of alabaster, 
Whirl'd in the belching flame with horrid hiss. 
By that wild watchfire cower'd the lonely one, 



LAMECH, THE KEGICIDE. 147 

Amid a throne of icicles, that look'd 
The earliest labour of the polar storm, 
Cold glittering pillars, pure and beautiful 
As the blue moonbeams. On a fretted crag, 
Like famine shivering in the selfish world, 
Sat the pale shadow o'er the wreck, and keen 
The tempest of the night descending smote, 
With fierce and biting edge, his ashy cheek, 
And now was heard the voice of the Most High 
Rolling along the waters ; from the dark 
The deep gigantic thunder bade the storm 
Rush on to battle ; while the warrior winds 
Sang to the vollied lightnings in their charge, 
Sweeping the desert ; and the mighty rain 
Came down like madness through the gather'd clouds, 
Lashing their ranks to atoms ! Oh ! 'twas grand 
And glorious confusion ! All the waste, 
The fire, the hurricane, the winds and waves, 
Seem'd then, and only then, to have received 
A portion of their Maker's spirit ; and 
A power, a feeling, and a glory, which 
Gave life, magnificence, and harmony 
To every portion of the universe. 
The sky-dividing hills, the hoary crags, 

h 2 



148 LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 

Were whirl'd along the breakers, waste and wild. 

Peak after peak, like sunbursts in a storm, 

Went down amid the deluge ; and the seas, 

The fierce and flashing oceans, thunder'd in 

Like death betwixt their adamantine ribs ; 

Their thousand forests wrench'd from their gray rocks 

Went drifting on the waters ; like the limbs 

Of perish'd nature, and high over all, 

Wheel' d the blue storm, thro' which the lightning rush'd 

Like demons eager to lay waste the world. 

Creation was a wild and starless mass 

Existing but in two immensities, 

One whirling world of waters and one sky 

That reel'd above the billows, and no bird 

Swam in the strangling ether. That wild one, 

When all his tribes were gather'd in the grave, 

Had, with a miser's feeling, hoarded life ; 

Long had he shiver'd on that horrid mount, 

Watching with haggard eye its riven jaws 

Belch forth the sulphury blaze, that day by day 

Grew paler, till at last the fearful flame 

Died in the hollow mountain ; still he kept 

His seat upon the everlasting cliffs, 

Till every living thing — the savage wolf, 



LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 149 

The pard, the lion, and the tiger — lay- 
Lifeless around his solitary tread ; 
And rustling through the cold and scatter'd clouds, 
The latest wanderer had come whirling down, 
And gasp'd away its spirit at his feet. 
All perish'd, leaving that devoted one 
The ghastly monarch of the silent earth ; 
And then he stood aloft upon his throne 
Of icy desolation ; gazing o'er 
The muttering, melancholy waves, that swept 
O'er every mountain's forehead, islanding 
The peak where stood the solitary, lone 
As God above the elements, ere light 
Rose at his mighty word. As thus he gazed, 
A carcase floated past, Promethean-like, 
With strong gigantic limbs that heaved along 
The deep in horrid mockery of life, 
And, pinch'd with hunger, on its bosom sat 
A famish'd vulture, feasting at her full, 
And ever and anon with heavy wings 
Flapping the dead — and Lamech crawling look'd 
Over the beetling crag, as hurried past 
The ghastly form and its inhabitant, 
And laugh'd in frenzied joy. The reveller, 



150 LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 

Roused from her meal with that unnatural laugh, 

Eyed the intruder with a look that said, 

Man is not monarch now ; — then struck her beak 

In the cold dead, and wildly whirl'd away 

Over the sea, whose mountainous billows shriek'd 

The dirge of a past world. The regicide 

Now, as in mockery of earth's kings, put on 

The crown of Enoch — but it suited not 

His wasted forehead — yet he proudly stood 

Sublime 'mid desolation, with his arm 

Stretch'd out in lank and ghastly majesty, 

Holding the only sceptre in the world. 

Then lauglvd the skeleton, and stretch'd his jaws 

In wild derision at the pomp of kings. 

Where were those mighty ones, whose fiat strew'd 

The earth with carcases — whose voices spoke 

Like the loud trumpet, and bade havoc rage 

Unfetter'd 'mid their tribes — whose armies hid 

Whole empires in their glory ? — They were gone. — 

Those wild annihilators of mankind — 

Those sceptred pests of frail humanity, 

Lay crownless 'mid their slaves ; no one to show 

Where those leviathans that swam in blood 

Wither'd unknown ; that solitary one 



LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 151 

Now wore the only crown ; no one remain'd 

To pluck it from his brow ; he stood amidst 

His lifeless kingdoms, and his hosts the dead, 

With visage like the grey expiring moon 

Seen in the blue of morning — then he sunk 

Smote by the levelling hurricane, — as fell 

The fiery deluge down, the wanderer lay, 

His head upon a glacier's splinter, which 

The cutting lightning had in passing cleft, 

And from his frozen pillow he upturn'd 

A dull dilated eye to the black storm ; 

Then thought he on a dream of his young days, 

When he was drunk with love ; a tender girl 

Who was the pole-star of his soul — but set 

When blushing into beauteous womanhood — 

A gentle rosebud, opening to the sun 

Of her twelfth summer ; but the vision pass'd 

Amid the shriek of tempests. Far away 

A dim high-floating creature caught his gaze, 

One hoary ranger of the feather'd tribe, 

One lonely eagle — the last wanderer 

Of all his kin of blood. He gazed and saw 

The gory shadow whoop and hover round, 

And wheel, and shriek, and staggering flap his wings, 



J oL ■ LAMECH, THE REGICIDE. 

Drunk with the tempest — till at last he fell 
Sheer through the groaning clouds, and at his side 
With fluttering pinions vainly beat the ground. 
Now all were wash'd from their high sepulchres, 
All but that giant maniac and his mate. 
He lay upon the ice ; beside him cower'd 
The dying eagle — and the setting sun, 
Like hope forsaking the devoted world, 
Rose o'er the mighty waters ; one wild arch 
Of beams and lightning, like the bridge of death, 
Spann'd the cold battlements of that last cliff, 
And flung one glimmer o'er them. Lamech's gaze, 
And the dim eye-ball of the shivering bird, 
Were all the orbs in the doom'd universe 
That drank his parting glory ! Fierce and thick 
Gather d the tempest ; one unearthly gleam 
Has flash'd — has died ; and on the shoreless sea 
Blackness sinks down for ever — all is waste — 
No sun — no moon — no murmur but the storm — 
And the lone shadows of the monstrous clouds, 
Stretching for leagues and darkening the deep. 
Time, that old shadow on earth's dial stone, 
Shifted unheeded — there were none to mark 
The phantom stealing o'er creation's grave. 



THE DEAD BOA. 

Her dwelling was a cave, where Time 

Might have received his birth ; 
So dark, so silent, and sublime, 

It look'd more old than earth. 
Parch 'd by the burning star of day, 

Around wild, waste, and grand, 
A thousand leagues — away — away, 

Stretch'd one wide world of sand. 

Nought stirr'd the thick and blistering air, 

Nought broke the dazzling sheen, 
That fell on nature's forehead, where 

Ne'er bloom'd one spot of green ; 
Silence in dreamlike glory stood, 

The monarch of the ghastly clime, 
Far sleeping o'er that solitude, 

Where nothing moved but time. 

Gaunt snake ! there thou hast made thy den, 
'Mid groves with every horror rife, 
h 3 



154 THE DEAD BOA. 

Lurking unseen, like Satan when 

He smote the tree of life. 
Thou didst not fear the tiger's fangs, 

The stately buffalo, 
The panther, in his fiercest pangs, 

To thee was scarce a foe. 

If e'er he sprung against thee, thou 

Didst meet him in his wild array, 
Whirling him, as thou would'st the bough 

From some old tree away. 
The dusky lion that did walk 

Alone beneath the sky, 
Beheld thee through his forest stalk, 

But let thee pass him by ! 

He durst not in his strength be found 

Disputing thy command ; 
The thunder of thy giant bound 

Had crush'd him in the sand. 
Yet thou hast droop'd :— o'er thee the blast 

Of solitude is darkly shed : 
None needs to mark thy grave ; thou hast 

For shroud thy thousand dead. 



THE AURORA BOREALIS. 



Are ye unholy shadows, that by fits 

Start from your grave, and in your shining shrouds 

Walk those high wastes, where desolation sits 

Nursing the dreamer silence, 'mid the floods 

And snow of centuries, and savage crowds 

Of peaks, that cut with their sharp scythes of ice 

The dusky myriads of the charging clouds 

Led by the giant storm, whose fiery voice 

Cries, Gather, — and rush on, the seas beneath rejoice ! 

Wild phantoms of the dark, from height to height 

Fresh leaping into being now, and lost — 

Ye look like drunkards dancing through the night 

And reeling o'er the slippery crags of frost, 

Those snowy deserts bird has never cross'd, 

Those frozen cataracts,— those floods of stone, 

Which in their hoar sublimity are toss'd 

Down on the Esquimaux, who sinks alone [zone. 

Beneath those worlds of ice when spring unbinds their 



156 T HE AURORA BOREALIS. 

Your mirror is those everlasting spars 

Of stainless frost brush'd by the whirlwind bare, 

Shooting like glory up among the stars, 

Ye flash like moonlight on perdition ; there 

Ye've plough'd for centuries the fetter'd air, 

Like Satan struggling over chaos — well 

That savage region, where death makes his lair, 

Might seem the monstrous billows of deep hell, 

Frozen in their wildest roll by some almighty spell. 

Ye leap in glory o'er those masses — ay, 

In mute and dread magnificence, but none 

Can mark your path of beauty in the sky, 

Amid those crystal crags life never shone. 

The whale, in storm and darkness dashing on, 

The polar bear amid her howling brood, 

The gaunt wolf gasping his expiring groan, 

Are all the kin of your cold solitude, [blood. 

Where silence stands in dread — as death had chili'd his 

The feeble pinions of the cheerless hour 
Can bring no change within thy ghastly realm ; 
The sickly sunbeam in its short-lived power 
Strikes vainly on the cliff's majestic helm ; 
The muttering hoar-frost soon can overwhelm 



THE AURORA BOREALIS. 1 57 

The struggling day-star — winter in his cloud, 

With his sharp icy fingers, does embalm 

The haggard form of nature in her shroud, [bow'd. 

Whose features, turn'd to stone, remain when states have 

Methinks the first sad solitary bark 

That, like a pilgrim, cross'd the frozen deep, 

Whose stony floods were fetter'd in the dark, 

Felt hope descending 'mid the horrid sleep 

That gather'd o'er the elements — they'd keep 

Their fond eyes fix'd upon the stainless blue 

Of the chill sky, that bound each rolling heap, 

And, as along the ice thy streamers flew, 

Oh ! they have knelt to thee, how lonely — yet how true ! 

When in his cloudy chariot, icy death 
Rattled above them through the frozen scars 
Of the sharp icebergs, whose destroying breath 
Glued them like statues to their deck, thy bars, 
Shooting athwart the Highlands of the stars, — 
Oh ! they have bless'd — that momentary blaze 
Which flashing on the desert's thousand spars, 
Like hope upon despair, such beauteous rays 
Which wafted warmly back the dreams of their young 
days. 



158 THE AURORA BOREALIS. 

Your realm is in that cold and frozen clime 

Where ruin and old silence holdeth sway ; 

Where winter's breath has glued the wings of time 

Like marble to the wizard's shoulders grey ; 

Where Hecla, like hell's altar, flames for aye, 

His red plume plunging in the sunless heaven, 

Lit by old earthquake, shining 'neath his ray 

A vast eternity of glaciers riven 

Gleam through the fetter'd air, like the last flush of even. 

Fear walks a shadow o'er the horrid coast, 

With finger on her lip and cloudy eye, 

While death sits darkly on his throne of frost, 

Waving his icy sceptre through the sky, 

His tresses are the thunder storms that fly 

In dread sublimity along the deep, 

When in their caves the savage monsters die, 

And the old glaciers, roused from years of sleep, 

Crush the enormous whale, while in her maddest leap ! 



THE INDIAN'S GRAVE. 



In the United States, and in the very centre of cultivated fields, may 
be traced the graves of the ancient inhabitants of America. Many 
of those green heaps must have remained without a tenant for 
centuries, and though now distant a thousand miles from the 
deserts, where the last remnants of the Indians are permitted to 
live, yet, to this very day, may be seen lone and weary pilgrims 
sitting in the sunshine of an Autumn evening on the graves of 
their fathers, after having traversed whole states to reach the 
melancholy spot, and there indulge in a brief dream of their de- 
parted greatness, and of those far times when they were alone the 
possessors, and not the outcasts of the continent. The following 
Poem represents one of those men of the wilderness, after having 
crossed the vast lakes and wilds of Canada, imploring a Virginia 
planter for the use of the neglected grave of his kindred, in which 
to bury his father. 



Christian I I heard my father say, 

Upon his dying bed, 
That many a hundred leagues away 

Reposed his nation's dead ; 
And ere his spirit sank to rest, 
His dim eye glisten'd on the west . 

It was not that the sun stood there 
In robes of sparkling glow, 



160 



THE INDIAN'S GRAVE. 

Though he had often knelt in prayer 

To that bright god — ah, no ! 
His golden smiles had not the power 
To soothe him at his latest hour. 

It was the thought, which could not melt 

In life's last agony, 
Of scenes where once his sires had dwelt 

Before you cross'd the sea, 
And memory's spirit, not subdued, 
Pointed to this far solitude. 

He said he wish'd to wither here. 

He died : — I slung my bow, 
And travell'd many a desert drear, 

Though worn and weary now. 
I scour'd the forest and the brake, 
I swam the stream, and cross'd the lake. 

Here lived my sires, and here they lie, 
Here rose the battle's din ; — 

Think'st thou that corn and wine can buy 
The ashes of my kin ? 

Nay, do not tell me thou hast sown 

Thy treasures o'er each wither'd bone ; 



teitj 



THE INDIAN'S GRAVE 

That mansion is the dead's — 'tis mine ; 

Each low unhonoured head 
Loved the blue sky, then let it shine 

Upon their humble bed ! 
The sun, that cheer'd them on the hill, 
Oh ! let it beam above them still ! 

Thou hast the plain — there dig and sow, 

There let thy harvests wave ; 
But the wild desert flowers must grow 

Upon my kindred's grave ; 
The peace-tree withers on its stalk — 
But who unsheath'd the tomahawk ? 

Why did you leave your land of birth 

Beneath your native sky ? 
Oh ! was there not enough of earth 

Where you and yours might die — 
No homes where young affection dwelt — 
No graves where love and faith have knelt ? 

Enough ! thou know'st we once were free ; 

Those sunny hours are past, 
An outcast wanderer begs of thee 

A grave to rest at last ; 



161 



162 



THE INDIAN'S GRAVE. 



Plant on it — spurn this poor request, 
And death's last curse shall with thee rest. 

Stranger ! my father's ghosts are strong, 
Swift, as the lightning streams 

Athwart the clouds, they rush along 
From the dim land of dreams. 

I'll pray to them, as by they roll 

To fix their red shafts in thy soul ! 

They'll hurl the fierce destroying blast 

Upon thy blooming bowers, 
And the dark earthquake's shadow cast 

Around thy haughty towers ; 
On the black hurricane they'll tread, 
And flap its blue wings o'er thy head ! 

But if thou grant'st my sire a home, 

The star of peace will shine, 
And hope will blossom round thy dome, 

And every joy be thine. 
Oh ! 'tis not much, for child to crave 
One spot to dig a father's grave ! 



THE FIRST SHIP. 



The sky in beauty arch'd 

The wide and weltering flood, 
While the winds in triumph march'd 
Through their pathless solitude, 
Rousing up the plume on ocean's hoary crest. 
That like space in darkness slept, 
When his watch old silence kept, 
Ere the earliest planet leapt 
From its breast, 

A speck is on the deeps, 

Like a spirit in her flight ; 
How beautiful she keeps 
Her stately path in light ! 
She sweeps the shining wilderness in glee. 
The sun has on her smiled, 
And the waves, no longer wild, 
Sing in glory round that child 
Of the sea. 



164 THE FIRST SHIP. 

'Twas at the set of sun 

That she tilted o'er the flood, 
Moving like God alone 
O'er the glorious solitude, 
The billows crouch around her as her slaves. 
How exulting are her crew, 
Each sight to them is new, 
As they sweep along the blue 
Of the waves. 

Fair herald of the fleets 

That yet shall cross the wave, 
Till the earth with ocean meets 
One universal grave, 
What armaments shall follow thee in joy ! 
Linking each distant land 
With trade's harmonious band, 
Or bearing havoc's brand 
To destroy ! 



TO THE COMET. 



Mysterious Visitant ! through those high seas 

Where stars and moons are islands, dost thou go ! 

Hast thou a charm upon our destinies, 

To weave the tissue of our joy or woe ? 

Hast thou a rein to curb our fates below ? 

Oh ! art thou, in thy dark volcanic car, 

To earth's weak wandering multitudes a foe ? 

And dost thou yoke the steeds of guilt and war, 

And bid the demons lash their winged pests afar ? 

From Time's far childhood to this living hour, 

When he has grown a dotard, men have deem'd 

That in thy wandering thou didst bear the power 

To change their fortunes ; earth's old tribes have seem'd 

Spell-bound in terror, when thy banners gleam'd, 

Red galley of a dim and boundless deep ! 

Thou dost not stray, though night has round thee dream'd 

From grey eternity — no, thou dost keep 

Thy free and fearless path, where all is death or sleep. 



166 T0 THE C0MET> 

Thou'rt said to prophesy to mankind shrouds — 

To empires desolation and decay, 

When, in thy wide pavilion of the clouds, 

Thou stand'st like death on nature's dying day, 

Filling her millions with a mute dismay ; 

Blue ghastly pestilence is of thy kin, 

Earthquake in his annihilating play, 

And haggart famine with green shrivel'd skin, 

Woe, war, and fell despair, and all the brood of sin. 

The sun, the troops of stars which storms disperse 

Among the clouds, have one predestined path ; 

But thou, wild ranger of the universe ! 

Hast nought to bind thee ; in thy hours of wrath, 

When tempests ope their cloudy lips and breathe 

Destruction o'er creation, orbs may die, 

Launch'd into darkness by the hand of death ; 

But thou, great messenger of the Most High ! 

Stand'st, as thou still hast stood, when ruin thunders by. 

Thou dost depart, and visit other spheres ; 
When centuries have pass'd — thou comest again ; 
Yet on thy brow we trace no shade of years ; 
Death has been stranger in the lone domain 
Where thou hast been sojourning — all in vain 



TO THE COMET. 1 67 

Earth's sons have eyed thee in thy mansion chill ; 
In vain the Persian made his hallow'd fane 
The snowy scalp of the cloud-mingling hill ; 
He saw thee in the sky — hut all was mystery still. 

When nature from the hoary deep was reft, 

And sprang triumphant in her youthful might, 

Thou wert perchance the earliest star that cleft 

A pathway through the dark for rosy light 

To follow thee upon its jocund flight ; 

Thou wert the messenger, the Godhead sent 

To lead old chaos to his caves of night, 

Where mercy fetter'd him, till love had blent 

His spirit with his waves, and form'd the firmament. 

Thou wert a wonder to the world gone by ; 
Thou wert the star that stood with fiery gleam, 
Waving thy flag of promise in the sky, 
Which cheer'd the wise of old by Ganges' stream ; 
And thou didst lead them with thy magic beam 
Through the blue hills of Ind, until they saw 
Their God and Saviour in a holy dream ; 
And thou didst stand above his couch of straw, 
Fit coronet for Him who gave creation law ! 



168 T0 THE COMET. 

The planets wither in the depth of night ; 
When years descend and make their glory grey, 
'Tis said thou fill'st their empty arms with light ; 
Gathering afar each lone and wandering ray, 
Thou comest exulting with the robes of day, 
To wrap around the dim dismantled sun, 
Thou drinkest in the morning on thy way, 
And, with his blazing torch light, thou dost run 
To light the dying shrine of heaven s divinest One. 

And thou, perchance, mayst be the mighty scourge 

Who yet shall shrivel up the wings of time, 

And in thy dark destroying glory urge 

Our planet, sear'd by sorrow, age, and crime, 

Over the brink of being, to that clime 

Where death with ruin'd orbs his mansion decks, 

And thou mayst suck into thy wrath sublime 

The stars, which will but seem as little specks 

Beneath thy fiery wings, which lasheth them to wrecks. 



THE BAPTISM. 

I saw them in the house of God 

Lie smiling side by side ; 
I heard the thrilling prayer that now'd, 

And bless'd a mother's pride. 
It pass'd — some boyish years roll'd on 

Of sorrow and of mirth ; 
Closed is life's page ! — they now have gone 

From off the laughing earth. 

And where are they ? ay, gaze around ; 

Their little cot still moulders there ; 
But ask where may its flowers be found — 

And silence answers, Where ? 
Oppress'd they sought, fair hope, with thee 

Those western worlds beyond the wave ; 
Their mother died, — the yawning sea 

Was the old wanderer's grave. 

She bless'd them ere she died ; they knelt 

Together side by side, 
And o'er their throbbing hearts they felt 

Her cold hand slowly glide. 



170 THE BAPTISM. 

The sea breeze raised her hoary hair, 

Death spread his dark eclipse ; 
Her last breath was a mother's prayer, 

Pour'd from a mothers lips. 

Her boys beheld her corse depart ; 

They saw the waters o'er it driven ; 
And, in the bitterness of heart, 

Their prayers were peal'd to heaven. 
But soon they raised each drooping eye 

From where the cheerless waves did roll ; 
Faith pointed to the mighty sky, 

The mansion of the soul. 

Beneath misfortune's baneful spell 

The brothers soon were doom'd to part ; 
They kiss'd — they wept the word farewell, 

In brokenness of heart. 
They breathed their perish'd mother's name, 

The moment they were doom'd to sever ; 
They shed some blighting drops of flame, 

And parted then for ever. 

In the far deserts of the east 

The eldest heaved his latest sigh ; 



THE BAPTISM. 171 

The vultures hurried to a feast — 

His bones bleach 'neath the sky ; 
The tiger nears them in his scent, 

The swarthy Indian sees them rot, 
The Tartar rears his snow-white tent 

Above, but heeds them not. 

In dark Canadian forests, one 

Sleeps in those solitudes of gloom ; 
A naked chieftain of his clan 

O'er him has raised a tomb. 
For oh ! he had a generous soul, 

And ere his weary toils did cease, 
Ke quaff'd with him the friendly bowl, 

And smoked his pipe of peace. 

Now rests he by those inland seas 

Where the wild panthers play, 
And twilight, 'mid the ancient trees, 

Flings darkness o'er the day. 
Thus they are parted in their sleep 

Who prattled o'er one kindred sod ; 
The grave its prisoners cannot keep, 
They'll rise when the wide waste and deep 

Yawns to the voice of God. 
i 2 



THE FIRST SOUND FROM EARTH. 

A seraph, whose mission had led him afar 

To the bounds of creation, home winging his flight, 

In his wanderings travelled by many a star, 

Fair children within their dark cradles of night ; 

With wonder he gazed on that beautiful race, 

So young in their childhood — so glad in their shout ; 

When last he had wing'd these black regions of space, 

Not an orb in its glory was playing about. 

The Eternal had spoken, and numberless spheres 
Now boom'd through the ether in radiant crowds ; 
Their God had forbade them to wither with years, 
And had hung them aloft in their theatre of clouds. 
Each sang in delight on its radiant throne, 
Each roll'd on in sunshine undimm'd by a tear ; 
But hark ! 'mid their anthems of gladness, a groan 
From a young planet floats on the wanderer's ear. 

With wonder the seraph bore down on his path, 
Till over the breast of that beautiful star ; 



THE FIRST SOUND FROM EARTH. 173 

'Twas earth ; and that shriek had arisen, when death 
O'er his earliest victim stood shouting afar. 
That groan space has echo'd, shall never be still, 
Till time fold his last wither'd pinions below ; 
Each bosom shall suffer, each spirit shall thrill, 
And each moment be clogg'd with that matin of woe. 



TO EARTHQUAKE. 



Methinks that thou wert cradled on the cliffs 
Of the grey Alps, which through the clouds expand 
Those billowy peaks, that eagle never skiffs ; 
Where hoary winter takes his lasting stand, 
The shining avalanche within his hand ; 
Where burst a thousand cataracts, like fire 
Lighting a horrid labyrinth to the damn'd. 
Where the mad surges boil, and hiss, nor tire, 
But with their dizzying roar fill the almighty choir. 

There on those jagged crags where whirlwinds lounge, 
Which look like one almighty sea of storms, 
Frozen to marble in its wildest plunge, 
Where hangs the hurricane his fiercest forms, 
And where the lightning in its glory charms 
The mighty spirit of the thunder cloud ; 
Methinks old Time first leapt into thine arms, 
And thou didst straight conceive, and yelling loud 
Whelp'd shaggy Ruin forth — while rushing in a crowd 



TO EARTHQUAKE. 175 

Came storm, and darkness, rolling o'er the hill, 

And tempest whistling far away — and fast 

The cutting lightning, blue and beautiful, 

Ran sheering through the plumage of the blast ; 

And the big thunder rattled long and vast, 

And mist, and rain, and many a cloudlet torn, 

And giant Death, the mightiest and the last, 

All rush'd to gaze upon thine earliest born, [jnorn. 

Spawn'd on the shatter'd rocks, whose foreheads hid the 

Those thousand constellations that appear, 

Floating like islands in a shining sea — 

Oh ! did they form in some far nameless year 

One splendid and unmarr'd infinity ? — 

One glorious world, from every blemish free, 

Where pleasure was not fading like the grass ? 

Oh! was its bosom first plough'd up by thee, 

Didst thou and rampant Ruin rise, alas ! 

And o'er the deep profound, shatter that orb like glass ? 

Scattering its broken wrecks, like icy spars 
Along the bosom of the wasteful deep, 
Those rent and shining wrecks, which are the stars 
Which gather up in heaven when mortals sleep. 



176 T0 EARTHQUAKE. 

And didst thou like a levelling tempest sweep, 

Ploughing its surface to a thousand waves, 

Till in thy strength thou wert sent down to keep 

Thy dull dominion in earth's lowest caves, 

There to dig out, in gloom for towns and empires, graves ? 

Soon as thou didst alight upon the earth, 

Thou left'st those frozen crags, and flew afar 

To the black mountain urns, and brought to birth 

The blighting flame of elemental war ; 

Then blazed the young volcano on her car 

Of clouds and sulphury vapours ; stirr'd by thee 

Its smother'd ashes rose anew to mar 

Infant creation in her hours of glee, 

Then reel'd whole continents, as earth was but one sea ! 

And thou didst tear the barriers of the deep, 

Whirling the drunk earth from her children's tread, 

And cried to ocean, who with dreadful sweep 

Wash'd them in millions to his oozy bed ; 

And thy black wings o'er all shall yet be spread ; 

Annihilating spirit ! thou shalt rise, 

Walk in thy strength, and who shall strike thee dead 



TO EARTHQUAKE. 177 

But He whose fiat form'd thee in the skies, 

And sent thee down through space o'er earth to tyrannize ? 

The city hears thy cloudy chargers champ 

Above her temples in the deep midnight ; 

And thousands, crush'd to ashes 'neath thy tramp, 

Proclaim thy triumph with the morning light ; 

The towers that mock'd the pale stars in their height, 

The marble domes, the wonder of the land, 

Like frost-work melting in the noonday's might, 

Vanish beneath the pressure of thy hand, [[stand. 

And Death himself amazed yawns where they once did 

And thou dost prompt the fiery Hurricane 

To shrivel up the sky — and thou dost hold 

The Ocean by the blue and ruffled mane 

A moment — then, like war-horse rushing bold, 

Thou drivest him o'er the strand, where he has roll'd 

And aided thee in thy wild war on man. 

Earth is instinct with spirit — she is old — 

Why torture her, ye mighty pests ! who can 

Blot stars ? — why war with us, whose lives are but a span ? 



i 3 



A SHIP RUN DOWN AT SEA. 

She swung before us like a cloud 

Along the breakers blue ; 
One maddening shriek — oh God, so loud !— 

Rose from her sinking crew. 
T saw her mighty shadow cast 

Athwart our reeling bark 
One moment, — o'er her hulk we pass'd, — 

And all was hush'd and dark ! 

I heard the hiss of the black wave 

In which she staggering sank ; 
I heard the prayer her sailors gave 

As death's wild cup they drank. 
One rush of sails, as on we bore 

Above her through the gloom, 
And crash of timbers, like the roar 

Of thunder, spoke her doom. 

On swept our strong but stagger'd bark, 

Stunn'd by the awful shock, 
When from the curtains of the dark 

The ghastly moonshine broke. 



A SHIP RUN DOWN AT SEA. 179 

Away we swept before the storm; 

I gazed upon the wave, 
But all, save one fair floating form, 

Had found a darksome grave. 

The surge, around her boiling white, 

Soon lost its crest of blue ; 
When o'er it, in his swarthy flight, 

The storm's red spirit flew. 
Cursed be the blast that drives us on 

Across the waters wild ! 
Oh mercy, heaven ! that helpless one 

Has in her arms a child ! 

Like dungeon roof, the billows hung, 

Through which the red moon's ray, 
In wild and lurid streaks, was flung 

Along the emerald spray. 
I saw her in that fitful glance, 

But we were sweeping by — 
We could not save : — I mark'd but once 

On us she bent her eye. 

Her cheek was like the marble, wet 
With the devouring brine, 



180 



A SHIP RUN DOWN AT SEA. 

And on her long loose locks of jet 

Glitter'd the cold moonshine. 
No shriek came from her ashy lips ; 

She drifts with starting eye, 
As if through nature's last eclipse 

She saw her God on high. 

The moonbeams caught her straining gaze 

While flashing on the main, 
She slowly raised her faded face 

Towards that starry plain ; 
She heeded not the billow's roll 

Around her darkly driven, 
Her all was in her arms, — her soul 

Yearn'd for its native heaven. 

The waves are rippling to her lip ; 

She shrieks — she gasps — she sinks ; 
Yet still she holds her treasure up 

Till the dark cup she drinks. 
'Tis done ! — she reels — her raven hair 

Floats on the waters wild, 
And her last gurgle was a prayer 

Gasp'd o'er her drowning child ! 



LETHE. 



The spider lias woven his web in the imperial palace ; and 
The owl hath sung her watch- song- on the towers of Afrasiab. 

Distich of Persian Poetry. 



A dead and melancholy stream, that flows 

From a black gulf where nature has expired ; 

A dull expanse of ever- sleeping* waves, 

Hush'd by the broad wings of the silent night, 

In their rude cradle of untrodden cliffs, 

Where life looks lull'd into a frozen trance, 

And the sharp cutting precipices stand, 

Wedging the mute and stagnant atmosphere 

Among the ribs of their fantastic peaks. 

Time dozes 'mid the ruins ; solitude 

Has elipp'd the wizard's wings, and dug his grave, 

And o'er his urn oblivion's waters roll. 

How silent is their current ! not more smooth 

The airy visions of a summer slumber 

Stealing along the brain, though in it lie 

Ambition, pride, the travail, and the toil, 

The pomp, the splendour, and the majesty, 

The monuments, the sepulchres, the thrones, 



182 LETHE. 

The hopes, the fears, the joys, the sufferings, 

The tears, the smiles, the passions, and the pains, 

The thoughts, the labour, and the lumber — all 

The spoil of time, the triumph of the grave, 

And earth's unnumber'd millions — yet how mute 

That river with its burden steals along ! 

No billow whispering of the perish'd — nought 

Giving an echo of the multitudes 

Down drifting with its deluge ! All is still, 

Silent, and dark, and dread, and hush'd as fear 

Amid a wilderness ; the crags are zoned 

With black eternal woods, that never wave, 

But seem a forest petrified to stone, 

Throned 'mid their realms of ice — they look as old 

As nature ; and like cloud on cloud, when spins 

A whirlwind o'er the ocean, they uprear 

Their shaggy crests line over line above 

Their battlements of granite, whose blue scalps 

And fractured ridges break the highest heaven. 

Throughout their savage vistas, yawning huge, 

Which the dull twilight renders visible, 

Appear the ghastly wrecks — the skeletons 

Of old enormous cities — monuments 

Lost with their tribes and builders in the dark, 



LETHE. 183 

A thousand Ninevehs, where Ruin mourns 

That nothing stands to level ; hoary heaps 

Rear'd in creation's morning, they have sunk 

With all their glory to the sepulchre. 

Yet there life's tragedy has been ; and Hope 

Has died beneath her elder brother Fear ; 

And Fortune, with her frost work wreaths, and Fraud 

Have lured the millions with the words of truth, 

Hollow and spiritless ; and bastard Love, 

The world's stale commerce bought and sold for price, 

Hath wanton'd heartless as the summer moth ; 

And Mercy pinionless, and Pity chain' d 

With hearts of stone have shiver'd by the side 

Of Justice, who has stood, as still she stands, 

Holding her balance in this selfish world, 

Blindfolded to the friendless and the poor. 

Spirit of nature ! not the smallest shade, 

Which wing'st thy mighty throne, but carries change 

To what is perishing ; and hours, and days, 

And years, and centuries, like the winter blast 

Sweeps from the tree of life perpetual showers 

Of buds and blossoms — there all speaks decay, 

And Mirth is petrified, and Joy is left 

A statue in the twilight of the past ; 



184 LETHE. 

And Sorrow on the lap of Silence sleeps 

Her cares away, nor feels a heartache more ; 

Even Death, the trampler, is but a dream, 

A fearful shadow that once flutter'd o'er 

The mansions of the perish'd, and disturb' d 

A little moment their inhabitants, 

And then was gone for ever — all are mute. 

The mighty giants, children of the east, . 

Who walk'd in glory on the mountains, ere 

Death cut his harvests yearly, now are gone. 

Around them all is horribly still ; 

Eternal cliffs, that o'er each other hang 

Toppling in high and steadfast ruggedness, 

As if to crush with one gigantic plunge 

The clouds that cower a moment 'neath their frown ; 

Hoar crags that look like halls, where Time first taught 

Earthquake and Ruin, his firstborn, to work ; 

Fear sits upon the peaks, whose monstrous horns 

Mix in the frozen atmosphere ; the wind 

Ne'er startles the old sleepers ; all are hush'd ; 

The shadow Sorrow, and the fiend Despair, 

Death the pale spectre, and the serpent Sin, 

With all her thousand furies, are not there ; 

They lie not with the perish'd — they are up 



LETHE. 185 

And busy on the mad old whirling world, 

Weaving their web of discord in the dark, 

Sapping the lone unguarded tree of life 

That stands, and wavers o'er the flood of night, 

Smote by each storm that sweeps the universe, 

Shakes ever and anon its million buds 

Down the mute waters of forgetfulness ; 

Ay, the grey world, like mighty theatre, gapes 

With spacious stage ; on which the actor Man 

May strut his hour in the great play of life, 

Joy, fight, exult, droop, sorrow, weep, and die ! 

While Death, o'er all the battle and the broil, 

The hopes, the fears, the strange vicissitudes, 

The pride, the tyranny, the hate, the scorn, 

The spoils, the triumphs, and the armaments, 

The funerals, the armies, and the pomp, 

The boards, the banquets, and the luxury, 

The cottages, the palaces, the domes, 

The monuments, the gibbets, and the chains, 

The mirth, the smiles, the sorrow, and the tears. 

The hoods, the mitres, sepulchres, and thrones, 

The dungeons, and the scaffolds of the earth, 

Drops from his chamber of oblivion 

The curtain of the dark, — and shuts the scene ! 



THE INVITATION. 

A famish'd vulture gasping lay 

His life in solitude away, 

His savage gaze, now vainly bent 

Upon the burning firmament, 

Reveal'd a murderous spirit spent. 

He lay and sliiver'd — when on high 

A rush of pinions through the sky 

Made the hoar drooper lift his eye. 

One of his kin approach'd, who spoke : — 

u Arouse thee, brother ! from thy rock ; 

I've bent to thee my gladsome flight 

From a far glorious land last night, 

Where liberty, in darkness nursed, 

That lightning of the world has burst 

O'er man — and blood shall quench thy thirst !" 

The dreamer eyed the desert dim, 

Where oft a meal had greeted him 

Of ghastly head and quivering limb ; 

And murmur'd, " Nay — for, one by one, 

Last eve I saw a caravan 



THE INVITATION. 187 

Move o'er the sand in splendid row, 
Ten thousand turban'd heads like snow 
Dotted the desert — from my rock 
I saw the rich unharnessed cars, 
While o'er their weary slumbers broke 
The blue night and a thousand stars. 
Each eye was closed ; but as they lay, 
I snufFd the simoom far away. 
On came the cloudy giant — thou 
May'st mark their corses on the brow 
Of yon red waste — oh, had I still 
My strength of wing, I'd feast my fill !" 

" Old warrior ! is thy knowledge gone 
To choose one festering skeleton, 
For the fresh victims that will be 
Slain ere the setting sun for me ? 
In yon dim sea lie flowery lands, 
And one enormous city stands, 
Whose domes, and towers, and many a shrine 
As high as our old eyries shine 
Along the bosom of the air ; 
But slaughter, vengeance, and despair 
Keep their wild court in darkness there ; 



188 



THE INVITATION. 



And in that capital, a thing 

Whom millions long have named a king, 

Because his dupes will not be slaves, 

Has fill'd his bleeding land with graves ; 

And fetter'd man, no longer mute, 

Has pluck'd the fair forbidden fruit 

From freedom's tree, — while fire, and death, 

And hoary desolation, hath, 

'Mid crimson oceans, ta'en their stand, 

With red annihilating hand, 

Shaking the reins of guilt and slaughter, 

Till hate amazed looks silent after 

Their steeds that gallop through the fight. 

The words, Religion — Freedom — Right, — 

Have spread for me a gorgeous room, 

And at the last, blue plague has come 

And breathed on every frantic brow, 

Their bravest hordes by myriads bow. 

Old gory dreamer ! what say'st now? 

Arise with me ! a million brands 

Are dripping in unpractis'd hands ; 

The torch is in the palace dome, 

And nought but Ruin finds a home ; 



THE INVITATION. 

The proudest chiefs in pride may mount 
Their warriors 'neath the morning sun, 
But, ere his setting, death can count 
A thousand for their one ! 
Arise ! — the blood of that fair land 
Would deluge even our wastes of sand!" 

The famish'd bird, to havoc true, 
Shook his old plumage in delight, 
And, with his strong-wing'd brother, flew 
To mingle in the fight. 



189 



THE FLOWER. 



TO MY AMIABLE AND ACCOMPLISHED FRIEND, MISS JANE MUNRO, 
THESE SIMPLE STANZAS ARE DEDICATED. 



Maiden, though its bloom be gone, 

Yet wear this little flower for me, 
It grew above the breast of one 

Who much resembled thee. 
Ay — she was light and lovely, when 

She seem'd as never to grow old ; 
A few moons since, and she was then 

Of woman's richest mould. 

Oh ! 'tis a lonely thing to hope, 

Then mark those morning hopes decay — 
To rear the flowers, then see them drop 

All one by one away. 
We trusted that her future years, 

Like summer sunshine, would have pass'd, 
All glory through this vale of tears, 

Safe from misfortune's blast. 



THE FLOWER. 191 

The buds, that now are living flowers, 

Were sleeping in their beds of green, 
When late she moved through pleasure's bowers, 

The spirit of the scene. 
She died ; the shadow of decay 

Fell on her aching heart like balm ; 
Scarce could we think she was away, 

Her parting was so calm ! 

Maiden, these are the blessed flowers 

Which waved above her lowly rest, 
Nursed by the lone and laughing hours, 

Oh, wear them next thy breast ! 
As emblem of her, till we meet 

In regions, when we shall behold, 
Far, far beneath our airy feet, 

The wrecks of systems roll'd. 



THE MOONBEAM. 



Thou streamest through the grated cell 

Where freedom pines away ; 
Thou com'st in joyous flight, to tell 

Of hope's unclouded day ; 
Thou speak'st of stars and mountain streams, 

Of heaven's unsullied dome, 
And, more than all, of childhood's dreams, 

And flowers that hallow'd home. 

Thou breathest of those visions bland 

When bliss around us flew, 
When Love walk'd laughing hand in hand 

With Time who simper'd too ; 
Lull'd by the odour of youth's hour, 

Which charm'd his sense the while, 
When, wheresoe'er he moved, a flower 

Sprang up, that made him smile. 



SONG. 

Love form'd thee, my Julia ! his wild spirit stole 

Through thy bosom predestined his throne, 
And soon thou didst rise in thy beauty — a soul 

As sparkling and soft as his own. 
He gazed on his image without shade or blot, 

To which his bright stamp had been given, 
Hung o'er thee in rapture, until he forgot 

That his seat was left vacant in heaven. 

He gazed on thy young and thy beautiful mould, 

Where harmony breathed o'er each part ; 
But knowing full well that his work would grow old, 

He bestow'd upon virtue thy heart. 
Then let chance frown on — 'neath his sternest control 

My spirit her manhood will keep, 
If bless'd with thy smiles, thou young beam of my soul, 

Though Fortune should pass me asleep. 



SONG. 

Though this wild brain is aching, 

Spill not thy tears with mine ; 
Come to my heart, — though breaking, 

Its firmest half is thine. 
Thou wert not made for sorrow, 

Then do not weep with me ; 
There is a lovely morrow, 

That yet will dawn on thee. 

When I am all forgotten, 

When in the grave I lie ; 
When the heart that loved thee 5s broken, 

And closed the sparkling eye ; 
Love's sunshine still will cheer thee, 

Unsullied, pure, and deep, 
For the God, who 's ever near thee, 

Will never see thee weep. 



TO THE SKY. 

Almighty tabernacle, where the scars 

Of time, and chance, and change can leave no blight — 

Where God is minister, and suns and stars 

The glorious worshippers ; and life and light, 

And storm and whirlwind, in their rushing might, 

And clouds and lightning, and the thunder's tone, 

And the wild hurricane in savage flight, 

The music chimed to the Eternal One, [throne : 

Whose hand has stretch'd thee out, and form'd thee for his 

Thou art the only temple fit to lend 
To earth's Creator dignity and praise ; 
The mountain cliffs the footsteps that ascend 
To thy high altar. — and the sun's far rays 
Thy shrine, which glitters with undying blaze. 
Let the soul eye thee — and she will expand. 
Not vainly did the Persian of old days 
Erect his altar on the highest land ; 
God there was felt and seen unchangeable and grand. 

k 2 



196 T0 THE SKY# 

The spirit pants for greatness — earth's young race 
Knelt to their Maker on the rugged peak ; 
Those crags that look the pale stars in the face, 
The patriarchs of creation were not weak ; 
And still the spirit in her strength will seek 
A bosom-thrilling dome for the Most High, 
A shrine which in its lonely might will speak 
Of things that will not change, and cannot die ; 
Where is a pile more vast than the wild hills and sky ? 

There will she trace her God in characters 

That will not wither with the lapse of time; 

The solitary comets, and the stars, 

That o'er the icy mountains nightly climb ; 

The sun, that stands amid the storm sublime ; 

The clouds, that float in glory o'er the sea; 

The homeless winds, that in their wandering chime 

On the wild hills their songs of liberty ; 

All in their strength speak forth, Invisible, of thee. 

There, on the peaks of the high solitude, 
The soul becomes familiar with the tone, 
The prayer, which Nature pours in solemn mood 
From her vast unwall'd temple to the one 
Sole ruling Spirit on his starry throne: — 



TO THE SKY. 197 

Come, unbeliever, in your wanderings, come ! 

Climb the green desert — listen to the lone, 

Deep, indistinct, and all -pervading hum 

Which Nature sings to heaven, for she is never dumb. 

There sit 'mid her sublimity, and doubt ! 

View the bright world of vapours, as they roll ; 

List to the mountain tempests, like the shout 

Of nations in their joy ; each shining pole 

Gleams with the living sun ; and to thy soul 

Can Nature not lift up her mighty voice ? 

The river, rushing o'er its watery goal, 

The wilderness — the flood — the precipice — 

All breathe aloud of God— oh ! wherefore not rejoice 

With Nature in her gladness, when she tells 

That man is made to hold his high career 

Beyond the starry wilderness, where dwells 

A Being fit to adorate, not fear ? 

Oh ! wouldst thou have thy spirit moulder here ? 

Gaze on earth's vault — the glaciers that, like sea 

Of glory, glitters in the atmosphere, 

Robed in the winter of eternity — [thee. 

Oh ! sceptic, pause — and read — such books were writ for 



198 T0 THE SKY 

Stretch on, bright sky ! earth's hills are but like wrecks 

Lying along thy breast of cloud and flame ; 

What even are all the stars but little specks, 

Floating in thy far glory ; thou'rt the same 

From year to year, while Nature's giant frame 

Is plough'd and palsied with the weight of age ; 

The earth shows nothing but her children's shame, 

But thou remain'st for aye the brightest page 

In God's great work, unsoil'd and laughing at time's rage. 

The pillars of the world shall crack and bend, 

Planets be quench'd in night, but thou wilt be 

The cradle of new stars, when God shall send 

The wither'd systems from eternity : 

Thou mightiest temple of the Deity ! 

Time has not dimm'd thy forehead — endless years 

Roll on, but quench not thy obscurest ray, 

Nor steal the beauty from thy living spheres, [tears. 

Which like thine altars, blaze while earth is worn with 



LEONIDAS AT THERMOPYLAE. 



Xerxes still entertaining some hopes of the flight of the three hun- 
dred Spartans, waited four days on purpose to give them an 
opportunity to retreat ; and in this interval, he used his utmost 
endeavours to gain Leonidas, by making him magnificent pro- 
mises, and assuring him that he would make him master of all 
Greece if he would come over to his party. Leonidas rejected 
every proposal with scorn and indignation, Xerxes having after- 
wards written to him to deliver up his arms, Leonidas, in a style 
and spirit truly laconic, answered him in these words—" Come 
and take them," 



Three hundred- — and they stood 
With freedom's flag unfurl'd — 
Their swords unsheathed, and unsubdued, 
Against the banded world. 
Their cities all were sacked, 
Destruction's flames had clasp'd them ; 
Their fearful blades were red and hack'd, 
But still each strong arm grasp'd them. 

Their foot was on the hill 

Which in happier moments bore them ; 



200 LEONIDAS AT THERMOPYL^. 

Around them were their homes — and still 
Their country's sun shone o'er them. 
The vale — the sky — the rock — 
The breeze — the mountain river — 
Each element of glory spoke, 
And bade them stain it never. 

Hope's meteor gleam had set, 
Fair freedom's shrine was riven, 
And they were deeply wrong'd — but yet 
Each wrong was unforgiven. 
They've javelins that can smite, 
And fame that still may flourish, 
And blades that yet in blood can write 
Their requiem when they perish. 

Their latest stand sublime, 

The mountains dark seem viewing, 

And they are monuments that time 

Can never lay in ruin. 

Each blue and icy peak 

That splits the far clouds floating, 

From nature's page their fame will speak 

When they and theirs are rotting. 



XEONIDAS AT THERMOPYLAE. 201 

Brush'd by the dancing air, 
Like ocean heaves their plumage. 
And Persia's despot glitters there,, 
But who will do him homage ? 
In vain his battled line 
Meets freedom when she charges- — 
In vain his gather'd millions shine 
Along the mountain gorges. 

They came, — they little knew 
The chief whose falchion glittered 
Like sunbeam 'mid the gallant few, 
Proud hearts, by wrongs embittered. 
They tread the evening flowers, 
Ere morning's dew has wet them, 
Graves then will be their only dowers 
When Sparta's sons have met them. 

Ay, strike ! your fathers' ghosts 
Are o'er your phalanx bending, 
Hovering to see yon fearful hosts 
Before your torrent rending ; 
Yes ! let their banners fly, 
Here are no lips to bless them ; 

- K 3 :, 



202 LEONIDAS AT THERMOPYLAE. 

And if they fall, what weeping eye, 
Or broken heart, shall miss them ? 

'Tis eve — the sun's warm lip 
Hath kiss'd the smiling waters ; — 
'Tis night — and the broad moon is up, 
And all her laughing daughters. 
Though Persia's hosts are nigh, 
Let other minions serve them ; 
The men of Greece have learned to die.. 
Death cannot now unnerve them. 

As floats the eagle, when 
Some feathered foe does find him, 
The chief gazed wildly on the men 
Of Persia come to bind him ; 
He shook the awful brand 
Which oft, when hope was fading, 
His sire had purpled for his land, 
'Gainst hosts that were invading. 

Fierce as the bolts that fringe 
The storm which o'er earth tramples — 
A glory, death could only change, 
Played round his swarthy temples. 



LEONIDAS AT THERMOPYLAE, 203 

He stood on freedom's range 
Of crags, like one who knew her ; — 
He stood, like spirit of revenge, 
To smite the slaves that slew her. 

The heralds came — the power 

Of empires were behind them ; 

They bade Greece yield her swords and cower, 

When her heroes had resign'd them. 

The Spartan chief exclaimed — 

" No ! not while we can make them 

Dig graves for Persia's proud and famed — 

But let them come and take them !" 



THE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 



In the year 1789, the hull of a merchant vessel was discovered 
drifting on the high seas ; and, on searching the wreck, one man 
was found reduced to a mere skeleton ; he had evidently been 
many weeks alone in the ship, the crew of which had perished 
by the plague. The survivor is supposed to relate the following 
to those who picked him up. 



Eternal sea! a fearful tithe, 
Of man, and man's frail works are thine ; 
Mown down by Havoc's gory scythe, . 
They rot beneath thy brine. 
Spirit of power ! unveil thy bed, 
And, oh ! restore me back my dead. 
Ay, still I hear that scream, which told 
The plague is here — so deep, so cold, 
And so unearthly — far it swept 
Along the spray, while echo kept 
That death-shriek floating o'er the waves, 
Wild requiem for untimely graves ; 
Then were the victims of our deck 
More frenzied than in storm or wreck, 



THE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 205 

With sounds of blasphemy and prayer, 
All wildly hurrying here and there ; 
And then the long" low parting breath, 
And the fierce fiery thirst of death ; 
The fall of the unshrouded head, 
For none hung o'er the livid dead, 
That lay with glazed and starting eye, 
Teeth set, and brow turn'd to the sky, 
Lips blue and bloodless, bosoms pale, 
Hands spread, whose each extended nail 
Was deep indented in the deck, 
As ebb'd their heart's convulsive tide, 
I stood amid this horrid wreck, ';--'.- \ •. 
With none but Ada by my side. 

Long drifted we across the sea, 
Forgotten and forsaken ones, • - 

Till the rank weeds luxuriantly . . - 

Had cluster'd round the sapless bones. 
Hope we had none— above our. head = : . 
Hot clouds, or shivering tempests spread; 
Around us one wide .world of waves ";-=—■. 
We thought upon our fathers'. graves, . 
Dug calmly on the lone green hill, [,.'.; 
Where trees were fresh and clouds were still. 



206 THE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 

On — on we drifted, while the deep 
Hiss'd fiercely o'er each wither'd heap ; 
I heard the sea-bird on the blast, 
I heard the big waves rushing past, 
And oft while I could lift mine eye, 
And gaze upon the flood and sky, 
I saw the shark come rolling by. 
Gaping to seize my dying one 
That dropp'd beneath the burning sun. 

Hers was a form we seldom find ; 
Whose beauty, kindled up with mind, 
Around each gazer's spirit stole, 
Till part of the enthusiast's soul 
My Ada grew ; — in her last hour, 
I thought upon our childhood's bower, 
A thought which breathed around perfume 
The sickening shadows of the tomb ; 
I saw again our kindred star ; 
I heard once more my love's guitar, 
And those sweet native airs, that fling 
Such beauty o'er life's early spring. 
She lay beneath eve's dewy star, 
Herself as beautiful — and far 



THE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 207 

Came dancing round us many a light, 
As if the spirit of the Night 
Had hung his calm lamps o'er the sea, 
To guide her spotless soul when free. 

When she was dead, my glazing eye 
By instinct fix'd upon the sky, 
As if to follow in its flight 
Her spirit through those fields of light. 
Ah ! then a western beam that hung 
Far o'er the waters, warmly flung 
A ray upon her faded cheek, 
Which made her seem all life again, 
Her parted lips look'd set to speak, 
At least they had no curve of pain, 
And on her brow, so still and fair, 
Lay full enough of beauty there 
To start within my brain despair. 
Yet shall my Ada rise, and fling 
The dust of ages from her wing, 
And meet me in those fields on high 
When worlds are crashing in the sky. 

On went our bark, with none to guide 
Her pathway through the lonely tide ; 



208 T HE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 

No soul within her breathed but I, 

Who was too weak to steer her course ; 

We drifted 'neath whatever sky 

The waters swung her in their force. 

And storms had leak'd and swamp'd her through ; 

Corruption sat on all like dew, 

Clammy, and thick, and sickening — all 

Lay shrouded in that dreadful pall. 

Away we bounded : black and lone, 

I lay and writhed upon my back, — 

And guide or compass I had none 

To point my cheerless track. 

On my sear'd brain a stupor sank, 

The ocean spray I madly drank ; 

My hot eyes reel'd on that wild deck ; 

I felt as if Death grasp'd my neck ; 

My dim orbs flash'd, while thirst became „ 

Within my throat a raging flame ; 

My heart beat quick, my lips were black ; 

Warm as the red sun o'er our track, 

My spirit, with convulsive strain, 

Seem'd throbbing through my very brain ; 

A dizzy film beset my sight ; 

Day came — and went— but air was night ; 



-THE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 

A maddening dream, a pang intense, 
A whirling storm of soul and sense, 
A chaos of all shapes that dart 
To burn but not to break the heart : 
I gasp'd with bloodless lip and pale, 
And struck each strong convulsive nail 
With maniac fierceness in the dead, 
Whose ashes were around me spread. 
Like lightning o'er the floods we dash'd ; 
I heard no voice, no cheering sound, 
But the long ocean as it splash' d 
In dreariness around. 
So quick we whirl'd, my brain grew sick, 
The objects came so fast and thick 
Upon my glazed and burning eye, 
The million clouds that cross'd the sky, 
The sun-rays and the water's heave, 
And many a beauteous star at eve ;- — 
If one lone cloud e'er floated in 
The ocean of the moonlit air, 
I stretch'd my fingers long and thin, 
As if to grasp my Ada there. 

One day — one glorious summer noon, 
For well I knew the air of June, 



209 



210 THE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 

I felt a deep and sudden chill ; 

The breeze was in a moment still, 

And a low moan crept through the air, 

As Nature heaved a stifled prayer 

That spoke of storms — oh I how I wish'd 

Death from their wings as by they rush'd. 

The wild wind rose, and charg'd the van 

Of clouds o'er which the lightning ran, 

Blinding me with its scorching flash — 

Oh ! how I gloried in the clash, 

And stretch'd my wither'd hands, to court 

The thunder in its awful sport, 

That tinged my temples with its light ; 

But, ah ! the leveller would not smite. 

The roused waves veil'd me like eclipse, 

I oped my baked and shrivell'd lips, 

For then I heard the rain-drops free 

Come dancing downward on the sea ; 

The cold drops from the passing wrack 

Like balm fell in each bloody crack 

Of my parch'd throat, my bloodless tongue 

I spread and roll'd in ecstasy, 

To catch the drops that round me sung — 

Earth's sweetest draught to me ; 



THE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 211 

For oh, they seem'd as shower'd from heaven 

To heal my bosom sear'd and riven. 

Once, through my vessel's fractured rail, 

Hope mock'd me with a distant sail, 

A lonely ship, but far away, 

And leagues of flood between us lay ; 

And yet the shadow that she threw 

Came dancing o'er the silver blue 

Of the calm deep, as if she swung 

Away but one short cable's length. 

I strove to cry, but pain had wrung 

From me my manhood's strength ; 

The gurgle died within my throat — 

Oh, then I felt that heart-ache, which 

Comes when Destruction leaves a blot 

For Hope's delusive touch. 

And then I near'd a barren rock, 

From which a long and savage flock 

Of vultures pounced upon my wreck ; 

I heard them feasting on the deck ; 

They would have gored me, but my cry 

Kept them at bay,— the dead were nigh. 

I could not scare the spoilers, till 

The hungry troop had gorged their fill, 



212 THE SKELETON OF THE WRECK. 

When slowly rising, one by one, 
Flapping their black wings in the sun, 
I saw them shoot like shadows by, 
And vanish in the depth of sky. 

Once, at the opening flush of day, 
When darkness dappled into grey, 
And every star had crept away, 
While the broad sun, with orbit dim, 
Half trembled o'er the ocean's brim ; 
An arch magnificent was thrown, 
So bright, so beautiful, so lone, 
Pillar'd upon the azure deep, 
And stretching, with majestic sweep, 
Up the broad clouds — with glad surprise 
I gazed, and gazed upon its beam, 
And drank its lustre, till mine eyes 
Were fetter'd on the glorious dream. 
Well might I clear my throbbing sight, 
And eye that rainbow with delight ; 
For hope was in its heavenly ray — 
Scarce had its glories died away, 
When your fair galley breasted mine : 
You know the rest ■ * • *■ * 



TO THUNDER. 

Tremendous. Spirit ! where dost thou abide, 

When sleeping in the caverns of the air, 

Before thou dost exalt thy crest,— and ride 

Along the storm like Angel, of Despair? 

Where is thy throne, almighty warrior ? — where 

The urn at which thou light'st thy dreadful brand, 

Till the far nations see thy sulphury glare ;/ 

Flash'd forth in glory from thy cloudy hand, 

While o'er a thousand hills thou rollest awfully grand ? 

Swart ranger of the wide and starry hall ! 

Dim and magnificent is thy abode, 

When the clouds hang their drapery like a pall 

Over thy murky dwelling— thou hast trode, 

From far eternity, thy darksome road 

Deep, rolling, vast, unfetter'd, and sublime, 

Stunning the nations like the voice of God, 

Heard through all seasons, and in every clime, 

The same fierce withering bolt that yet will shrivel time. 



214 T0 THUNDER. 

Hoar wanderer of the heavens ! when thou dost fly, 

Marshall 'd and banner 'd in thy dark array, 

Amid the desolation of the sky, 

The dimples on the cheek of morn decay, 

Her laughing beauties soon are brush'd away. 

Hast thou a foe, stern warrior of the cloud ? 

The sun himself seems darken'd with dismay, 

Thy stormy messengers around him crowd, 

As if they long'd to fling o'er him an endless shroud. 

Oh ! 'tis a dreadful, yet a lovely hour, 

When thy big echo fills the trembling air, 

When Nature owns her Maker's awful power, 

And bends submissive as if awed to prayer; 

It looks as if the seraphim were there, 

Attending the Eternal through the sky, 

As on that morn when life's old tree is bare, 

When its last blossom has been seen to die, 

When thou and thine shall come to herald the Most High. 

When opes the portals of the grave to light, 
Thou art the awakening trumpet that shall start 
The ancient sleepers from their dreams of night 
Great voice of majesty and power ! thou art 
The messenger to launch the latest dart 



TO THUNDER. 215 

Which stuns creation to her farthest pole, 
That smites Destruction to the very heart ; 
Thou art commission'd in that levelling roll, 
To blast all things below except the human soul. 

The stunn'd creation shudders at thy shout, 
And Nature owns the presence of her God, 
His voice is peal'd above her ; can she doubt 
The One whose red right arm can raise the rod, 
And strike out systems from the world — whose nod 
Creates — annihilates ; — earth seems to reel 
When thou art travelling from thy far abode. 
Thou speakest to the nations, and we feel 
As if the Godhead spoke in every mighty peal. 

Oh! that my spirit in its strength were blent 

With thy fleet lightnings, as they spring on high ; 

That I, a portion of thy element, 

Might range with thee the desert of the sky, 

All fire — all soul — all motion — and all eye ! — 

Oh ! that my soul could fling her fetters off, 

And with the gift of immortality, 

Roam like the solitary stars that doff 

Their darkness in the night, beyond Earth's bitter scoff! 



ON A HIGHLAND BURIAL GROUND. 



One of the most sequestered dwellings' of the dead in Scotland, 
stands on the grey side of a lonely hill terminating a long range, 
that, running through Argyleshire, dips at last into the waves of 
the western' ocean.' Death seems to nave made it his favourite 
region, : by blastings very .thing. around buJt one solitary tree,. which, 
like some unhappy spirit, waves and wails in the dull and drizzling 
breeze of the Atlantic. * ;,: " ; ''* ! ' ' ;? ' '* ""• *''''*'* 



It stood upon; thegreen hills ;. round it grew 
Some aged thistles shaking in the breeze 
Their caps of down ; before it, broad and blue, 
To dim and' lonely grandeur, spread the seas, 
Restless and troubled, and the old sea-mew 
Sat on the cliffs like sorrow ill at ease. 
How silent are the dead ! and yet, perchance, 
Old Ossian's harp rung out its wildest tones 
Above the perish'd, when, to wrap their bones, 
Were piled the grey stones of the hill : my glance 
Roved with a sad delight o'er Death's expanse. 



ON A HIGHLAND BURIAL GROUND. 217 

I stood on Cruachan, * and round me slop'd 

The glens of Scotland with their solemn din, 

Ere twilight came from her dim bower, and oped 

A passage for the moon and all her kin. 

It was a lovely evening — and the sun 

Shot through some drooping clouds a watery smile ; 

An eagle that had all day wander'd on, 

Tired with the flight of many a weary mile, 

Rested among the graves ; from heaven's high height 

A Sunbeam straggled to that place of rest, 

As if forsaken on its lonely flight, 

And panting like the bird for its own nest 

In the far arbours of the glowing west. 

Mute cower'd the rider of the tempest, where 

Silence sat sleeping on each grassy mound, 

And 'mid the stillness of the Highland air, 

That moment's sunburst shed a glory round. 

Both seem'd an emblem to my musing eye, 

As they hung hovering o'er Death's narrow bed ; 

The one like Mercy smiling from on high 

Above the lowly and forgotten dead ; 

The other like a seraph of the sky 

Sent down to bid each dreamer lift his head. 

* A high mountain in Argyleshire. 



STANZAS. 

Yes— thou may'st smile, to hear me sigh, 

And laugh to see me weep ; 
The eyes are full that will not dry, 

The heart that will not sleep. 
Frail summer rose, thou hadst thy stings, 
Love fashion'd thee, but gave thee wings, 

Through sunshine thou didst keep 
Thy path ; a butterfly for sweets, 
That dallies with each flower it meets. 

'Tis well those morning hours are past, 

For ever vanish'd now ; 
The visions were too bright to last, 

They roll'd away — and thou, 
With all the fickleness of youth, 
Hast dimm'd the honour of thy truth, 

Hast broken thy first vow ; 
We've drank the bitter draught which seres 
What Hope had nursed, and knit for years. 



STANZAS. 

The star we used to journey by, 
When summer eves were still, 
When we have watch'd the burnish'd sky 

Roll o'er the western hill. 
Still meets me in the blue expanse, 
But ah ! its mild unclouded glance 

Wakes many a former thrill, 
And breathes with its unsullied ray 
The dreams — the hopes of boyhood's day. 

Ay, — underneath that spacious sky 
Since all those dreams have set, 
There 's not a place where thou and I 

Could meet, as we have met. 
No, no ! the visions of the past, 
Our spirit's fairest, first, and last, 

Their memory could not let 
Our passions grow, as once they grew — 
The grave can only join us two. 



219 



l 2 



THE COVENANTERS. 

The mad old world had still her banquet hours ; 
Her slaves their fetters and their dreams of joy, 
Tyrants their gibbets, victims, racks, and towers ; 
But they were only left the boon to die. 
Yet in the might of innocence they stood, 
Nought but the sky above them, and around 
The glorious depths of mountain solitude, 
Where in its thrilling vacancy they found 
A shrine to worship the Eternal God, 
In silence and in sunshine ; and that One, 
Who stretch'd the heavens in majesty abroad, 
Bent down to listen, and redress each moan. 
Oh thou, Almighty Spirit ! who hast rode 
Through far infinity, make every groan 
Which Freedom heaves, — a talisman to start 
A million patriots round each despot's throne, 
Whose righteous appeal, before they part, 
May be address'd to heaven with harness on, 
And their sharp falchions buried in his heart ! 



ECLIPSE. 

We trace a world of wonders in the sky, 

And of the million children on its breast, 

Some in their lonely loveliness may die, 

Like aged eagles on the glacier's crest, 

Drooping in silence up in their high nest ; 

Comets may scourge them in their wandering, 

And Darkness hush them to eternal rest — 

Or thou, sublime Eclipse ! which oft does fling [wing. 

Grief o'er their shining brows, may veil them with thy 

What art thou, phantom of Day's wilderness ! 

That dar'st to rise like Earthquake in high heaven, 

And, in thy solitary darkness, kiss 

The stars, that seem like their Creator living ? 

Art thou a blast from hell's dominion driven ? 

A tempest, and no more ? — a wandering one, 

Or scar by some destroying angel given 

To the fair forehead of the joyous sun — 

And when the planet smiles, is thy oppression done ? 



222 ECLIPSE. 

Art thou a shadow, flung from Time's grey pinions. 

Along the laughing features of the day, 

When mounts the wizard from his dull dominious, 

And dozing o'er the universe does stray ? 

Or is it Satan on his stormy way, 

Sweeping like hurricane athwart the sky, 

Flinging a midnight with the mighty play 

Of his huge wings, as he is soaring by. 

On the pure rolling orbs that in his journey lie ? 

Spectre of twilight ! in the realms of space, 
Art thou like Death, a messenger of gloom, 
Spreading thy cold hand o'er each planet's face, 
Shrouding them in the garments of the tomb ? 
Or art thou but a fever that will come, 
A transient sickness o'er each mighty star, 
From their pale foreheads banishing the bloom ? 
Dweller of loneliness ! thou seem'st to mar 
The glory of the spheres in their high homes afar. 

Thou risest up like Death, and stand'st between 
The bright hair'd day-star and the shivering earth ; 
Thou wrapp'st a mantle round night's loving queen, 
Thou strik'st the dimple from her cheek — the mirth. 



ECLIPSE. 223 

The lire of Nature dies on her blue hearth ; 
A cold dead twilight falls athwart the world, 
Such as Creation witness'd at her birth, 
Ere the fresh wings of Morning were unfurled, 
And from his throne of clouds Night's spectre king was 
hurled. 

When we behold thee lower upon the sun, 
Are revolutions happening there — a deed 
Which, by some mighty master-spirit done, 
Can make a planet like an empire bleed ? 
Are there some rude rebellion — some old creed 
Attack 'd and overthrown within its clime ? 
Or have a shackled population freed 
Themselves from error, tyranny, and crime ? — 
Oh! can heaven's wonders change that look unscath'd 
by Time ? 

Art thou the ghost of some dead system, cast 
From all communion with the stars, and doom'cl 
To wander o'er th' immeasurable vast 
Without e'er being in its ruin tomb'd ? 
Has thy frail wither'd orb in might presumed 



^24 ECLIPSE. 

To war 'gainst the Eternal, till a blank 

It wither'd in the universe ? — or boom'd 

It o'er the desert, and upon the bank 

Of chaos hung, like fire — then in its waters sank. 

If thou 'rt the spirit of a perish'd star, 

Thou must have felt the whirlwind and the shock, 

Which launch'd through night thy reeling orb afar, 

And all its bands with fair creation broke. 

I marvel not that thou dost love to mock, 

With ghastly glory, thy old sisterhood 

Of living lights, that still in beauty flock 

Around their God, in his high solitude : 

Though thou art but a shade, oh ! thou art not subdued. 

Death, in his darkness, shall obliterate 

Those worlds that seem exulting in their prime ; 

Thou dull and solitary potentate, 

Rise in thy dim array and stand sublime ! 

Or roll in glory o'er heaven's startled clime, 

Black as thy rayless wings, which yet shall fall 

Above the deathbed of the pilgrim Time. 

Magnificent shadow ! thou shalt be the pall, 

The hoary sepulchre, that yet shall swallow all ! 



THE FLIGHT OF NERO. 



Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days ? Thou lookest from thy 
tower to-day, yet a few years and the blast of the desert comes, it howls in thy 
empty court. 

Osstam. 



His groan was echo'd by the roll 

Of thunder on the blast, 
Which bellow'd to his shrinking soul 

Heaven's mercy as he pass'd. 
The lightning, sheering through the air, 

Flash'd on his sallow brow ; 
He thought upon his childhood's prayer, 

But could not breathe it now. 

He gazed upon the sky — the shaft 

Hiss'd burning through the gloom, 
And the storm sung, as if it laugh'd 

At his approaching doom ; 
While Tiber, with his angry waves, 

Yell'd as the fiend rode by, 
As if his victims, from their graves, 

Cursed him in that wild cry. 
l 3 



226 THE FLIGHT OF NERO. 

Night wrapp'd him with her sulphury pall, 

And, through the sweeping surge, 
The vulture, on the capitol, 

Scream'd forth his funeral dirge. 
The bolt, that plough'd the starless vault, 

The earthquake's yawn, the roar 
Of storms, that bade his charger halt, 

And stream from every pore ; 

Are now the only friends that join 

The wild one in his flight, 
The kindred sounds that dare combine, 

To cheer him through the night. 
Of earth's imperial throne bereft, 

He sees her purple glories fly ; 
Thus every despot should be left,— 

Unfriended, thus should die ! 



LINES 



TO MY SISTER, MRS JOHN MOORE, ON THE DEATH OF HER FIRST-BORN, 
AN INTERESTING AND BEAUTIFUL BOY. 



Oh, weep not, Sister ! He who makes thee bleed, 

Although he bruise, can prop the broken reed. 

His arrow, true to its devoted mark, 

That cut thy flower, was launch'd not in the dark. 

He saw the blissful change — and he will heal 

The wounds of thy fond heart. — Yet thou must feel : 

Thine was a mother's pride, — a mother's joy, 

While bending o'er thy fair and sprightly boy ; 

Thou didst not deem so soon the stone to raise 

Above the wither'd bud of thy young days ; 

Hope never pointed to his tomb, but brought 

His manly glories round thy raptur'd thought. 

But all those dreams are past, and thou art left 

Like Rachel weeping, of her child bereft ; 

Yet dry thy tears, fair mourner, — thou hast still 

Thy bosom's lord ; although the beautiful 

Hath faded from thy vision, he will rise, 

And thou shalt mount and clasp him in the skies, 

When worlds are ashes, and when Nature dies. 



THE GUARDIAN SPIRIT. 



Burst thy dwelling-, oh wind ! that the daughter of night may look from her 
gates in the sky, while the shaggy mountain brightens, and the ocean rolls his 
white waves in glory. — 

OSSIAX. 



I have left my shroud in the darksome grave, 
And far have I travell'd o'er mountain and wave, 
To watch, as I've done in our own native bowers, 
Thy slumber at noon, when the fair-hair'd hours 
Came dancing in light round Creation's breast, 
Lulling the spirit of Nature to rest ; 
When the young wave leapt to the breeze's tune, 
That drew the veil from the lady moon. 
Though the black sod rests on my bosom bare, 
Though its slime has darken'd my yellow hair, 
Yet the cool of the sky and the wandering gale 
Are sweet to lips so parch'd and pale ; 
And the breeze is dear on its viewless way, 
For it breathes the wild song of my early day. 
When the eye of the world beholds me not, 
I glide, at eve, to that hallow'd grot 



THE GUARDIAN SPIRIT. 229 

Where we whisper'd the vow ere our hopes had set, 

And I dream of its perish'd music yet ; 

The trees that waved o'er our bosoms then, 

For me spread their blooming boughs again ; 

And the same bird's song, and the same blue star, 

Looks down on me from its home afar. 

When the sun hung at eve on the ocean's breast, 

How oft have we stray 'd through the glens of the west, 

And gazed on the grey hills, that branch'd away, 

Like the waves of the sea on a stormy day. 

For the sacred thought of those hallow'd hours, 

I often roam through those skyey bowers 

Where the haze of thy world is never seen, 

And an atom of earth has never been ; 

Where Silence ne'er gazed on a living thing, 

Where the spirit alone hears the rush of her wing, 

Skimming those tracks which she dares to trace, 

Like a beam of the sun in the bosom of space. 

Though systems lie floating within my ken, 

Yet dearer to me is our own native glen, 

Where the peaks of the Highlands, in beauteous crowds, 

Start up through their solitary desert of clouds ; 

And I bend w T ith delight from my mansion on high, 

To see their grey pinnacles cleaving the sky. 



230 T HE GUARDIAN SPIRIT. 

Oh ! I shrink when I see the long worm crawl. 

And the beetle asleep on my rotten pall ; 

But I turn away from the sickening sight, 

To bathe my wings in the floods of night ; 

I love to drink the fresh stream of the sky, 

As, through the blue midnight, to thee I fly ; 

When the flowers are wrapp'd in their dewy shrouds, 

And the stars seem dreaming afar on their clouds ; 

And the white moon looks on the muffled deep, 

I chase the night-mare from thy strangled sleep. 

And cool the fire of thy throbbing brain, 

Till dreams of delight float round thee again. 

I drink thy sigh — 'tis a draught of bliss, 

And I kiss thee, though thou dost not feel my kiss. 

When visions of joy around me roll, 

I waft those dreams to thy slumbering soul. 

I loved thee below — I shall love thee on high — 

Mine is the love of eternity, 

Hallow'd in youth, and strengthen'd by time. 

Pure from the shadows of sorrow and crime. 

Granite and marble shall fall to decay, 

The sun and its worlds all wither away, 

But love, wafted pure from earth's valley of tears. 

Shall bloom through an endless duration of years. 



THE DEATH OF ALP ARSLAN. 



The fairest part of Asia was subject to his laws ; twelve hundred 
princes, or the sons of princes, stood before his throne, and two 
hundred thousand soldiers marched under his banners. The 
progress of his conquest of the East was retarded by Joseph, the 
carizmain, who presumed to defend his fortress against the power 
of the great king. When he was produced a captive in the royal 
tent, the sultan was provoked by his insolence to sentence him 
to death. At that moment the desperate captive, drawing a 
dagger, rushed headlong towards the throne ; the guards raised 
their battle-axes ; their zeal was checked by Alp Arslan, the 
most skilful archer of the age — he drew his bow, but his foot 
slipped, and he received in his breast the dagger of Joseph, who 
was instantly cut in pieces. The wound was mortal, and the 
Turkish prince bequeathed a dying admonition to the pride of 
kings. The remains of the sultan were deposited in the tomb of 
the Seljukian dynasty, and the passenger might read and meditate 
this useful inscription : — « Oh, ye who have seen the glory of 
Alp Arslan exalted to the heavens, repair to Maru — and you will 
behold it buried in the dust !"— Vide Gibbon. 



He started — and his eagle eye 

Fell on the rushing foe, 
His thousand guards were standing nigh, 

To mar the fatal blow ; 
Their proffered aid he sternly scann'd 
He waved them off with giant hand, 

And bent his father's bow, 



232 THE DEATH OF ALP ARSLAN. 

But, in that hour of doubt and pride, 
The erring javelin glanced aside. 

The captive struck ; 'twas but one blow, 
A moment's shout, — a groan — 

The terror of the world lies low, 
The lion chief is gone ! 

A captive's dagger does subdue, 

Has done, what millions could not do, 
And turn'd that heart to stone, 

Who made the nations round him bow — 

His glory is departed now ! 

That fiery eye, that haughty crest, 

The terror of the East, 
Which call'd the vulture from her nest, 

And spread for her a feast ; 
Which glanced across the desert's gloom 
As withering as the red simoom, 

Is now of earth's the least ; 
His dim eye glisten'd on his host, — 
He spoke, but not as warriors boast. 

" But yesterday, and from my throne 
I gazed o'er this array, 



THE DEATH OF ALP ARSLAN. 

And deem'd earth's millions all mine own, 

And panted for the fray ; 
Their standards rolling" in the sky 
Flash'd on my heart with frantic joy — 

Where are these hosts to-day? 
They still are there — the firm — the brave- 
But Alp, thine empire is the grave ! 

" Me thought the earth beneath my feet 

Reel'd with my giant power ; 
Those dreams of glory were as fleet 

As lightning in the shower. 
In vain the battle brand I clasp, 
It quivers in my feverish grasp ; 

Death is my only dower ; 
Ye that have seen my conquest's glare, 
Go to my tomb, and trace it there ! 

" Ye that have seen my glory, come^ — 
The grave will hold its trust ; 

There you will see my flatterers dumb, 
And all my minions just. 

Ay, death, without a courtier's pains, 

Will tell ye what of me remains — 
A shroud — decay — and dust — 



233 



234 THE DEATH OF ALP ARSLAN. 

A few wild flowers — a dark grey stone — 
Worms for the revellers round my throne. 

" In my youth's summer I have sank ; 

Kings read your conqueror's fall — 
He whom your proudest glories drank, 

Now view him in his pall. 
Learn, as ye muse upon his doom, 
When Death strikes down the loftiest plume, 

A little dust is all 
Left at the last, to mark the grave 
Where rots the monarch and his slave ! 

" Gone are my feverish days of fame, 

My dreams of power ; and I 
Am nothing but a dreaded name, 

Heard like storms rushing by. 
Ah glory ! thou'rt a fading leaf, 
Thy fragrance false, thy blossoms brief, 

And those who for thee sigh 
Worship a falling star, whose path 
Is lost in darkness, and in death !" 



TO THE MOON. 

The myriads of mankind depart — they die, 

They leave no vestige that they once have been. 

But thou remain'st for ever in the sky, 

Renewing thy existence, — night's fair queen ! 

The earth is old — her breast has lost its green, 

Fresh robes of morning ; temples fall with years ; 

But thou and thy companions still are seen ; 

Thy glorious sisterhood of living spheres, 

They perish not — they wither not, with grief or tears. 

I marvel not, when eying thy sublime 

And beautiful effulgence on the sea, 

That the lone star-read Chaldean of far time 

Should thus have built his altar unto thee, 

Bending on the high hills a patient knee ; 

For, oh ! thou art a beauty in the sky, 

A light, a glory, and a mystery, 

Mantled in silver charms that cannot die, 

And worship pour'd to thee was scarce idolatry. 



236 TO THE MOON. 

Oft on the broad and pillar'd streets of Thebes 

Thy beam has glitter'd, mantling many a pile 

Which, when the ocean of the desert ebbs 

And the sands shift, again may woo thy smile. 

Time treads down empires ; but thou stream'st the while 

Over the hoary pyramids, as bright 

As when the ancient dwellers of the Nile 

Beheld thy beauty from each marble height, 

And pour'd their prayers to thee in the lone hour of night. 

Ay, thou wert worshipp'd in the Memphian halls, 
A million priests to thee address'd their vow ; 
States sink, men perish, and old glory falls, 
Religions change, — where are thy votaries now ? 
The reverend heads, the mighty that did bow, 
Sunk with their shatter' d obelisks, they rot 
Among their stones and wild- weeds ; not so thou, 
Thy beauty flashes from thy starry grot 
O'er those dark sepulchres, where empires lie forgot. 

Thy mansion is all glory ; thou dost rise, 
And shine, and walk in beauty, in thy play 
Wooing the bashful clouds with laughing eyes ; 
If they like sickness dim thy cheek, — thy sway 



TO THE MOON. 237 

Soon drives the blighting plague-spots far away, 
Rushing betwixt them with thy silver wand ; 
In vain their gather'd masses round thee stray, 
No wrinkles mar thy brow ; Death's giant hand 
Grasps nations ; thou alone unsullied keep'st thy stand. 

When thou art streaming o'er the pathless hills, 

Nature seems feeling pleasure in the night, 

Her old and wither'd bosom wildly thrills 

As if a thousand dreams flash'd on her sight; 

She drinks thy shining torrents with delight ; 

The ocean is thy vassal ; thou canst hold 

His million waves in all their savage might ; 

The sun is not thy father ; thou hast roll'd [old. 

Ten thousand years through space, and yet thou art not 

I loved thee, gentle moon I thou wert to me 

Brother and sister and companion — all 

My kin, while standing on the silent lea 

I watch'd thy glory in the starry hall ; 

And thy white beams like shower of diamonds fall 

Upon the azure desert ; lovely light, 

Sure thou wert fashion'd, when Sin's fatal pall 

Was flung o'er earth, to welcome from her flight 

The lone and weary soul that journeys through the night. 



TO A SHIPS PENNON. 

Away, away, to the topmast high, 

For that is thy native place ; 
There wanton in the blue of the sky, 

Like a star in the depths of space. 
Through many a fair and sunny clime 

It is thy lot to range ; 
Through wastes where the fingers of withering Time 

Has ne'er written one word of change. 

The dim and starry wilderness, 

And the deep and mighty sea, 
And the lone blue clouds that each other kiss, 

Are the kin that will be with thee. 
Thou'lt dance aloft in thy measureless hall, 

While the solitary breeze 
Wakes silence, to join his carnival 

On the broad and weltering seas. 

Thou'lt ride alone in thy fields of blue, 
Like eagle on the blast, 



TO A SHIP'S PENNON. 239 

Above the heads of the gallant crew 

That nail'd thee to the mast. 
And if they meet their country's foe, 

They'll sink in the depths of the yawning main, 
Ere they strike thy towering plumage low, 

Or fling on thee one stain. 

Flag of Britain ! what earthly eye 

Can gaze on thee in thy lonely flight ? 
The sun in the awful depths of the sky, 

The homeless clouds that fringe his height, 
The round living moon that rolls through night, 

The streamers that play through the groves of space, 
The stars that sit on their thrones of light, 

Can eye thee alone in thy pride of place. 

When the ocean shrieks o'er his mighty harp, 

Brush'd by the wild hand of the storm, 
Oh ! may no ruffian tempest warp 

His arms of lightning round thy form. 
But may'st thou glitter again on our land, 

Red rover of the pathless sea, 
And kindle each heart on the cheerless strand 

That lonely waits for thee ! 



TO A PETRIFIED TREE 

DUG UP IN A MINE IN HUNGARY. 

Methinks thou wert of that tall race 

Whose leafy heads waved in the sky, 
When, rolling from the womb of Space, 

Creation oped her eye. 
Thou wert the blossoming abode, 

Where the wing'd wanderers learn'd to sing 
The earliest coronal that God 

Twined xound the brow of Spring ! 

Child of the perish'd wilderness ! 

Thou'st braved, in thy unshrinking power, 
The first launch'd storm, and thou didst kiss 

The earliest laughing hour. 
Thou wert ere man began to build 

His pillar'd cities in the grove, 
The maiden sceptre, Summer held, 

To show that God was Love. 



TO A PETRIFIED TREE. 241 

The lightning's infant shaft that flew, 

The thunder, and all-shaking storm, 
The first that Winter's icelips blew, 

Mantled thy giant form. 
And 'neath thy houghs, which vainly flaunt 

When twilight suns were waxing dim, 
The thrilling harp was struck to chant 

The earliest Poet's hymn ! 

The dove that came to Noah, thou 

May'st have supplied with that fair bud, 
When through the dark, God's glittering bow, 

Like Hope, hung o'er the flood ; 
So 'mid the starless solitude, 

While systems 'neath her feet are hurled, 
The soul shall stand — as thou hast stood — 

Above a perish'd world ! 



THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE. 



We are driven back, said an old warrior, until we can retreat no 
farther. Our hatchets are broken, our bows are snapped, and 
our fires are extinguished ; — a little longer and the white men 
will cease to persecute us, for we shall cease to exist. — Vide 
Sketch Book. 



The great sun o'er the forest hung, 

As the cold tide he quaff'd, 
His quiver on his shoulders swung, 

Drain' d of its latest shaft, 
Faint from the battle's thunder-burst, 
He stoop'd to quench his fiery thirst, 

And wipe his throbbing brow ; 
'Tis done — amid the solitude, 
Unconquer'd, but alone he stood 

The desert's latest now. 

His heart beat quick ; his brain was hot, 
His warrior kin were low ; 



THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE. 243 

His latest arrow had been shot, 

Had struck a haughty foe ; 
His bosom cords at length were sapp'd, 
His plumes unbraced, his bow-string snapp'd, 

And from its wither'd stalk 
The branch of peace was torn away ; 
And, broken in the morning's fray, 

He left his tomahawk. 

Beside him tower'd his own blue hills ; 

Beneath the sultry ray, 
In glory sung his kindred rills 

A song of childhood's day. 
The desert stretch'd in silence round, 
Where like the pard, with sprightly bound, 

He chased the buffalo, 
And stately panther through the wood, 
And, monarch of his solitude, 

Laid the striped savage low. 

But ah ! those happy hours are by ; 

His hopes are doom'd to bow, 
The white bones of his kindred lie 

Along the desert now. 
m 2 



2^4 THE LAST 0F HIS TRIBR 

Silence broods o'er their dwellings, and 
Death walks in triumph o'er the land ; 

Their shafts have struck in vain ; 
They met the foe at morn — and he, 
The last worn remnant of the free, 

In fetters must remain. 

He lean'd against an oak, and smote 

His forehead with a groan ; 
And gazing on the sun, he spoke — 

"Roll, star of light, roll on ! 
Thou glorious ruler of the storm, 
Death dims not thy almighty form ; 

But we by myriads die ; 
My kindred rose with thee to-day, 
Thou still art on thy throne, but they 

In death or darkness lie. 

" Our last shaft has been launch'd, it fail'd 
To break the oppressor's link ; 

Our foes are many — they've prevail'd, 
And we unfriended sink ; 

Death sits on every warrior's brow, 

Our hatchets are unwielded now, 



THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE. 

While Havoc strews the plain ; 
The tiger from his covert springs, 
The thirsty vulture flaps her wings 

Above ten thousand slain. 

" Hark ! in that wild and wandering blast 

Which skiffs the forests brown, 
The spirits of my sires have pass'd ; — 

Oh ! look in mercy down ! 
Let not your bleeding son depart 
In lonely brokenness of heart, 

Till he on this blue Alp 
Has piled a noble sacrifice, 
To glad you in the starry skies, 

With many a tyrant's scalp. 

" The tempest gathers o'er the slain 

Loud as the battle's din ; 
Rise, rise upon the hurricane, 

Ye spirits of my kin ! 
Exalt your swart and shadowy forms ; 
Come mantled in the mountain storms 

Which split the eternal trees, 
And in your cloudy darkness cast 



245 



246 THE LAST 0F HIS TRIBE> 

Their lightning at our foes — and blast 
Those despots from the seas. 

" Ghosts of the unburied dead, arise, 

And on your clouds of night, 
To the great Spirit of the skies 

Oh, bend your airy flight ! 
Point with your cold and shadowy hands, 
Where bleach your bones, where rust your brands, 

And where the friendless range ; 
Pray for the children of the free, 
And, if He grants not Liberty, 

To give at least Revenge." 



SONNET I. 



THE CATHEDRAL OF GLASGOW. 



Some of the old English cathedrals may surpass that of Glasgow 
in dimensions and in the richness of their architecture ; but none 
in that massy and dark Gothic grandeur, which constitutes the 
chief beauty of the buildings erected during the middle ages, and 
which strikes the beholder with more awe, than the fretted and 
over-laboured ornaments of either Salisbury or Henry the VII. 's 
chapel. 

Majestic shrine of the undying God ! 

Amidst the wreck of ages thou hast seen 

Times changed, and empires alter'd by the nod 

Of the Omnipotent : — Ruin has been 

Busy upon the world ; yet thou art green. 

Ten thousand sunsets now have tinged thy cheek, 

And yet thou look'st as proudly in his eye 

As on that morn, when first his crimson streak 

Mellow'd thy infant turrets from on high. 

Though twice five hundred years have o'er thee pass'd, 

With all their stormy legions of the sky, 

Yet thou canst still defy the thunder blast, 

Like virtue struggling with adversity, 

Though old and lonely, upright to the last. 



SONNET II. 

ON HEARING THE SOUND OF MISS H 's LUTE IN THE 

NIGHT. 

And Silence loved it ; for it wander'd on, 

So like the sound we sometimes hear in dreams, 

Melting away among the cold moonbeams, 

So sweet, an angel from his sapphire throne 

Might have bent down to listen, as that lute 

Sent its wild warble through the night alone, 

Even making Silence on her throne more mute ; 

And Echo caught it in its silvery play, 

And, taking up her harp with gladsome bound, 

Began to chant it in her cavern grey, 

Till Night became a soul instinct with sound, 

And Time seem'd chain'd a moment on his way, 

Listening in cold delight, as, round and round, 

The hills reverberated back the lay, 

Which sought repose in heaven, as not akin to clay. 



SONNET III. 



SUMMER MORNING. 



COMPOSED DURING A WALK WITH MY FRIEND, MR A. WHITELAW. 

Nature has waked, and yawn'd, and oped her eye, 

While on the mountains Morn has ta'en his stand, 

Drawing night's curtain from the dreaming sky, 

The glittering sunbeam in his dewy hand, 

Bright sceptre, to assert his calm command 

Over earth's grey expansion and the deep : 

'Tis done — the gather'd clouds of night expand, 

Starting like spirits from a troubled sleep ; 

While far away the uplands, darkly grand, 

Lift through the marble haze their foreheads steep ; 

The dim air glitters into life ; the land 

Smokes like a shrine to God ; with voice of mirth 

The lark ascends her sunny temple, and 

Bids the blue laughing hours embrace the earth. 



SONNET IV. 



THE MOUNTAIN CAIRN. 



This is a rude heap of grey stones, covered with the moss of ages, 
and piled above the bones of some forgotten hero of the hills, who 
perished on an inroad to the Lowlands. It is situated on the grey 
summit of Campsie fells, surrounded with all the accompaniments 
of mountain grandeur, rude cliffs, wild streams, and solitary clouds. 
Few graves are so elevated, and none in a scene of sterner desolation. 



Grave of the perish'd ! who can tell thy story ? 

Yet there thou standest on the silent hill, 

In all the majesty of mountain glory; 

Thy dirge, — the tempest sweeping sharp and chill. 

Like Silence sleeping in the solitude, 

Thou long hast dozed — the wandering sunbeams lend 

A beauty to thy years ; the mists descend, 

As if the clouds, in their majestic mood, 

Loved o'er thee in their loneliness to bend; 

As if they gazed on thee as on a friend, 

Nameless, and all unheeded like themselves. 

Tomb of the desert! the rude streams that wend 

Around thee, and the eagle in the shelves 

Of the grey precipice, are all that chant 

A dirge above the bones of thy inhabitant. 



SONNET V. 

ON THE FIRST VIEW OF THE HIGHLANDS FROM STOCKIE 
MOOR. 



A wild and desert track to the north-west of Glasgow, from which 
one of the most magnificent views in the island may be obtained. 
Around are the lone heaths and grey cliffs of the moor, forming a 
wild and noble foreground to the huge wall of the far Highlands, 
whose thousand fantastic peaks plunge deep in the bosom of 
heaven, while the silent waters of Loch- Lomond, at no great 
distance, sleep beneath that blue and beautiful sky so peculiar to 
the Highlands of Scotland. 



Now, through the bosom of the laughing morn, 
Ben-Lomond with his cap of snow appears, 
The eagle, on her wings of glory borne, 
Floats silently above his brow of years ; 
Morn with her million clouds is on her way, 
While Zephyr lips the bosom of the stream, 
Whose waves, like Time, are leaping into day, 
To sing a moment 'mid the hills, and gleam, — 
Then pass for ever. Lo ! a thousand peaks 
Of shining granite sleep amid the play 
Of the fresh sunbeams, all in grandeur speaks 
Of Scotland's plaids — the gathering — and the fray- 
When Ossian and his kindred giants drew 
The sword of Freedom on these deserts blue, 



SONNET VI. 

TO BEN-ARTHUR OR THE COBBLER, 

ONE OF THE WILDEST OF OUR CALEDONIAN ALPS, SITUATED IN THAT 
SINGULARLY RUGGED DISTRICT ON THE BANKS OF LOCH- LONG, 
CALLED ARGYLE'S BOWLING-GREEN. 

Gaunt Giant of the waste ! thou stand'st sublime, 
The rugged genius of the solitude, 
Amid the whirlwinds of almighty Time ; 
Beneath thee rolls, and roars, and foams the flood, 
Like the great restless world, with all its crime 
And passions, which long years have not subdued. 
Huge heap ! thou seem'st the swarthy skeleton 
Of some volcano, with thy bowels riven, 
As Earthquake's self had shaped thee for a throne, 
To spit his fires against the lights of heaven, 
And spew his hot and levelling lava down 
Upon the thousand peaks that round thee frown. 
Now comes the round moon rolling from afar, 
Her bosom girdled with a silken cloud, 
And high above the Alps of Arroquhar 
The stars have gather'd to a laughing crowd. 



SONNET VII. 

SPRING. 
INSCRIBED TO MY FRIENDS, MR WM. ROSE, AND J. BINNIE, JlTK. 

The world is quivering into life ; each bough 

Throws up a thousand buds of lively green ; 

The clouds have melted into smiles ; — and now 

Summer, beside her sister Spring, is seen 

Twining a rosy chaplet round her brow. 

Creation laughs, — and seems again to feel 

The warm embraces of the dancing hours ; 

Along the silent hills the infant flowers 

Drink in the wandering sunny rays, that steal 

In sleepy glory o'er the budding bowers. 

As thus I stand upon the uplands' brink, 

'Mid birds, and floods, and woods — fair Nature's din, — 

My heart seems breathing ;— oh ! my soul could drink 

The ripe rich luxury of Nature in. 



SONNET VIII. 

WRITTEN AT ETERICK BAY, ISLAND OF BUTE, WHERE THE AUTHOR 
SPENT A DELIGHTFUL SUMMER-DAY, FISHING AMONG ITS ROMANTIC 
DELLS, WITH HIS FRIENDS, JOHN NORVAL AND J. B. THOMSON. 

'Twas Twilight's hour of slumber, — and the blast 
Had ceased to riot on the mountains ; where 
A drowsy ocean of sunshine was cast, 
Mantling creation with its golden glare ; 
The dark clouds of a thunder shower had pass'd, 
And silence gather'd in the trembling air, 
Warm, thick, and panting from the tempest's last 
Convulsive meeting — oh ! the world was fair : 
The sun seem'd rolling to his slumbers fast, 
And the pale stars were rising o'er the bare 
Grey summits of the desert ; dim and vast, 
The broad round moon was climbing up the sky, 
Cold as the dead, and sullen as despair, 
Like Death, to gaze on weak mortality. 



SONNET IX. 

ON THE BLACK MOUNT A WILD SCENE IN ARGYLESHIRE, 



There may be sweeter spots in the island, but certainly none of 
more savage or desolate grandeur. Situated in the midst of the 
highest Alps of the central Highlands, the view from its summit 
is nobly terrific ; combining all the lone sublimity of the Arabian 
desert, with the sterner features of the valleys of Switzerland. 
The mountains of Breadalbane, Ben-Cruachan, and the other 
enormous masses of Argyle, with Ben-Nevis, and the deep black 
entrance into the vale of Coe, and those four rent and singularly 
wild-looking hills, which form the mouth of that glen of blood, 
comprise some of the features of the desolate landscape. 



Twilight has settled o'er dark Malmor's scars, 
And Cona wanders onward to the deep ; 
Night comes with her tiara of proud stars, 
And mantles the black vale ; a horrid sleep 
Reigns o'er the pass, save where the fitful sweep 
Of some lone eagle hurrying through the sky, 
Or distant wild-goat on the lowering steep, 
Bounding like spectre o'er the promontory. 
All seem in slumber ; and the mountains hoar 
No life has visited with looks of glee ; 
The gulf of Coe, and Rannoch's trackless moor 
Yawn through the darkness like a stormy sea ; 
A lifeless haze each icy summit shrouds, 
And huge Ben-Cruachan is hid in clouds. 



SONNET X. 

SUMMER EVENING SHOWER- 

Star of descending night ! fair is thy light in the west ; thou liftest thy unshorn 
head from thy cloud j thy steps are stately on the hill. 

OSSIAN. 

The playful breeze is dancing through the dell, 

Breaking the azure crystal of the stream, 

As if a shower of diamonds brightly fell, 

And woke the blue waves from a pleasant dream. 

The panting flowers have oped their shrivelFd lips, 

To drink the dazzling moisture ; the warm shower, 

Like laughing mirth, has fill'd their wasted cups, 

A living freshness clothes each drooping bower. 

The hymn of rosy evening has begun ; 

The gladsome trees, that wave along the sky, 

Shine in the golden glitter of the sun ; 

The birds that cower'd, as pass'd the rain clouds by, 

Start from the glancing bushes, one by one, 

And, leaping on the green and quivering spray, 

Trim their cold dripping wings, to chant their evening lay. 

THE END. 



HUTCHISON & BROOKMAN, PRINTERS, GLASGOW. 



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